Rank & Gala Coral deal

Rank in late January confirmed it is in discussions with Gala Coral over the possible acquisition of Gala’s casino business. The deal would make Rank, which owns the Grosvenor Casino and Mecca Bingo chains, Britain’s biggest casino operator. However it has been now several weeks and no deal has yet been announced.

Rank’s confirmation came after the Sunday Times reported that it was in advanced discussions to acquire Gala Casinos for £250m. The deal would see Rank, which is 74% owned by Malaysian-based gambling group Guoco, merge its 35 Grosvenor Casinos chain with the 24 casinos owned by Gala.

While Rank doing the deal would expect that there could be some competition issues and it may take time to deliver synergies, the deal would make sense financially and strategically for Rank.
A break-up of Gala, has been on the cards ever since the company became embroiled in a complex debt restructuring in 2010. In December it disclosed it had net debts of £1.3bn.

Rank has long been mooted as a possible buyer of Gala casinos for quite a long time, though acquisitions were temporarily put on hold last year when it was itself controversially purchased by its biggest shareholder – Malaysia’s Guoco.

However now the dust has settled on Rank, Buying Gala’s casinos would accelerate the plans of Ian Burke, Rank’s executive chairman, to expand the gaming group’s Grosvenor chain to 45 venues by 2015.

Ian Burke is already converting many of the Grosvenor outlets to a new G Casino brand, the first of which was rolled out in Manchester in 2006, aimed at attracting a younger clientele.



Selling the casino wing would help Gala strengthen its balance sheet – but could also herald further break-up of the group, which is run by chief executive Carl Leaver, the former head of Marks & Spencer’s international arm.

So why the delay in announcing the deal has been done?

One reason certainly is the logistics of some of Gala Casinos would have to close should Rank buy them, the operator would not want to have two or even three casinos in one town. Either closure and redundancies or possibly a sell on to Genting of those properties or another buyer, could be delaying the deal.

The possibility of the competitions rule could be another and finally the asking price from Gala Coral. Although what is believed to be £250 million, is not that expensive as analysts have already indicated.

Whenever the deal is announced and certainly will be, the UK will see the emergence of the biggest casino operator, called Grosvenor Casinos.