Rank Ends With Gala Casinos

Rank Ends With Gala Casinos
Talks that started in January with Gala have come to a close after Rank who owns 103 bingo halls and 35 casinos in Britain decided the proposed deal was not beneficial.

Following two months of deliberation Rank ended the discussion after failure to agree to a price acceptable to shareholders. Gala Coral owns 24 casinos and would of put Rank as the leader over Genting and the Malaysian group.

"The announcement of these talks was made on 30 January and we had projected completion of the deal at a sensible price given Gala Coral's desire to raise funds for paying down its material gross debt of £2.1bn at September 2011," Hollins said.

"Our casino business was not for sale when Rank made an unsolicited approach. Now that it is clear that a transaction on terms acceptable to our shareholders cannot be concluded, we are very happy to continue to drive growth from our casinos which are performing very strongly," Gala Coral said.

"These discussions have now ended after the parties failed to reach an agreement that was in the best interests of our shareholders," Gala Coral added.

Ian Burke, Rank's chairman and chief executive, said it was "committed to delivering sustainable growth in shareholder value; the proposed terms of the potential acquisition did not achieve this objective".

"We will now concentrate on delivering our organic growth plans, including the delivery of 12 more G casinos by 2015," Burke said.
Gala Coral has made a decision to re-launch its website and will make plans to refurbish some of the casinos.
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