William Hill H1 operating profit falls 16 pct on online woes

LONDON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - William Hill (Frankfurt: 633847 - news) , the British bookmaker that recently sacked its chief executive and has been targeted for a takeover, posted a 16 percent drop in first-half operating profit, hurt by a poor performance in its online business.

Philip Bowcock, who was appointed interim chief executive a fortnight ago, said the first half of the year had been challenging, but it was committed to fixing the problems after its online revenue dipped 3 percent.

"We have taken considerable steps forward in executing on Online's improvements but there is still a way to go," he said on Friday.

Nonetheless, the company said it still expected to meet its guidance to deliver operating profit of 260-280 million pounds for the full year.

First (Other OTC: FSTC - news) -half operating profit came in at 131.1 million pounds ($172.2 million) on revenue up 1 percent to 814.4 million pounds.

($1 = 0.7614 pounds) (Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Costas Pitas)