William Hill’s decision to offload its 50 per cent stake in its Spanish joint venture, Victoria Apuestas, pleased analysts today who upgraded the bookmaker’s outlook to ‘buy’.

Societe Generale was among those releasing analyst notes approving of the deal.

The company’s share price nudged upwards by 2.8 per cent today, trading at 194.70p at 1610 hrs. The bookmaker said previously that regulatory change in Spain was taking too long which would therefore impede the growth plans of the Spanish joint venture with Codere Group.

Ralph Topping, chief executive of the company said that the focus of the business would now be developing the international sports betting side of the business through the internet through the William Hill Online brand. T

The company has a total of 2,300 betting offices across the UK and Ireland as well as online and telephone gambling services in the UK.