Rank announce profit warning
The Rank Group has said that its poor performing Mecca bingo division has impacted on their six month results predictions ending December this year, warning that results will be lower than expected.
The UK based company that is the largest casino owner in the UK after the purchase of Gala Casinos and majority owned by Malaysia’s Guoco Group says it will have to look at cost cutting measures after revenues fell by 7% in the 15 weeks ending 13th October.
However Ian Burke the CEO believes that the company will turn around those half year results following the purchase of the 19 casinos from Gala in the second half of the year running till June 2014. Rank has a total of 55 casinos now after purchasing 19 casinos from Gala for a deal worth £179 million.
“The board anticipates operating profit for the full year to be marginally below market expectations,” Rank said, adding that the first half would be “materially below” the £33.4 million for the same period last year.
In total Rank owns 97 bingo clubs in the UK and blames much of the declining profit from the division on the particularly high heatwave in July of this year, also the companies online bingo offering was also down 3% citing strong online competition.
