The Tote

United Kingdom

This article was produced by Olswang LLP, which joined with CMS on 1 May 2017.

The seemingly endless saga of the Government's attempts to sell the Tote appears to have taken yet another twist. As we reported in our January update, Richard Caborn had invited a consortium comprising the Tote's management and staff together with various racecourses and race horse owners to make a bid for the Tote at the £400m price specified by the Government's financial advisers, as being the Tote's fair market value. The consortium confirmed that bid by the requisite deadline but, nevertheless, the deal has still to be concluded and there are increasing numbers of press reports to the effect that the Treasury has blocked the sale because it is too highly leveraged and that the consortium members have fallen out with each other. These reports have encouraged several in the industry who believe that the proposed deal is not to racing's benefit and who advocate either the Tote retaining its current ownership status or alternative forms of restructuring.