Report: Betfred’s Fred Done negotiating sale of 25% of the Tote

UK bookmakers Betfred are looking to sell a one-quarter stake in the Tote pool betting operation, according to media reports.

On Saturday, Sky News reported that Betfred founder Fred Done was in “advanced negotiations with a consortium of racing industry figures” about selling a 25% stake in the Tote. The report claimed the 25% stake was likely to fetch a price of over £30m, and that the deal could be concluded “within weeks.”

Sky News claimed the racing consortium was led by Eamon Wilmott, chairman of racing technology provider Total Performance Data and a former board member of the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), with which Done has waged a very public war of words over the past few years.

Last September, Done publicly declared that his firm’s “association with racing is broken.” Done vowed to pull the majority of Betfred’s on-course betting shops and scrap his company’s commercial relationships with racing following the July 2018 expiration of Betfred’s exclusive pool betting deal.