William Hill joins Turf TV

BOOKMAKER William Hill has followed arch-rivals Ladbrokes and Coral by signing up to Turf TV, a start-up television company that broadcasts live horseracing to betting shops.

The terms of the deal are understood to be broadly similar to those agreed by Ladbrokes, when it joined the service this month. The agreement is likely to be announced early this week.

Turf TV is a partnership between 31 British racecourses and Alphameric, a technology company. It was launched last year, but the big bookies had been resisting signing up to it because they have a stake in an existing service called SIS.

When the courses, which own their own media rights, wanted to launch Turf TV, the bookies were faced with the prospect of not being able to show pictures from races at the affiliated tracks.

Russians plot London float

A RUSSIAN chemicals company is plotting a $1 billion listing on the London Stock Exchange. Nitol, which is a subsidiary of the Russian conglomerate Ecolive, has appointed Citigroup and Credit Suisse to advise on a full market listing that could be launched as early as next month. Nitol, which makes high-purity silicon used in solar panels, is chaired by Tim Eggar, minister for energy between 1992 and 1996 in the last Conservative government.

Fraud is growing rapidly

KPMG has warned that an economic slowdown will lead to a surge in fraud. The accountant will this week reveal the results of a study of fraud in Britain over the past 20 years. It shows that such crime has been rippling out from London in recent years. Twenty years ago, the vast majority of frauds took place in London and southeast England. However, in recent years about two-thirds of cases that have come to trial occurred in other areas of Britain.

Between 2003 and 2006 over 800 frauds of more than £100,000 came to court – more than the combined total in the previous 12 years. The government is the main target of fraud, with cases involving more than £1 billion coming to court since 2003.

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