Rank Share Discussion Threads

[scrapman] 27/8/2010 08:39

Logan , any chance of approaching the company direct, or the registrars to get some clarification,?

Also noticed that Guoco cleared out a couple of dormant companies the other day ,maybe a bit of tidying up before some other type of corporate activity perhaps ??

[loganair] 26/8/2010 19:30

The usual Thursday large 'O' Trade Buys 2 x 185,000.

2 questions I still have:

1). Who is buying on Thursdays?
2). What ever happened to the 12.5% sold by BT and 5% sold by the Pru, a total of 17.5% of Rank stock? Still a total mystery to me.

[loganair] 14/8/2010 09:46

I noticed on Thursday 12th August there were 4 x 200,000 'O' Trades @ 109.7p (2 posted as Sells and 2 as Buys - IMO all 4 were the same) went through. So there are still come hefty trades being placed.

[guidfarr] 04/8/2010 20:08

Rank To Build On UK Strengths

30 Jul, 2010 / Gambling Compliance Ltd / William Chambers
Casino and bingo hall operator Rank Group plans to build on a "solid" first half of 2010 in Britain and look to online expansion abroad, as interim results released yesterday showed growth across all four divisions.
Rank, which until 2007 was blighted by consistently declining business, announced yesterday that it would bump up investment on the back of newly stabilised trade to modernise existing casino and bingo sites while planning to expand its online offering overseas.

It continued a positive 2009 performance as all four of its operations saw revenue growth in the first half of the year and group EBITDA crept slightly higher, growing 1 percent to £43.1m compared to the same period last year.

Analysts' pointed to the company's "stand-out" casino brand, Grosvenor Casinos which saw a 9.3 percent boost in revenue to £116.6m on the back of trialled 24-hour opening and saw EBITDA rise £3.5m to £22.2m.

Rank was also finally able to say that Mecca Bingo, which has 103 bingo halls in Britain, had seen the first growth in visitation for a decade with a 0.4 percent increase for the half to 7.52m after the icy weather kept customers out of the bingo halls prior to 2009's full year report.

Still, Rank's online offering, Rank Interactive, saw an £800,000 year-on-year drop in EBITDA to £4m with substantial falls in sportsbook and poker revenue which the company put down to increased marketing of bingo and casino games ahead of new site launches in Spain and Italy.

As PlaytechPortfolio info about Playtech reported earlier this week, Rank saw strong casino and bingo (which now accounts 72 percent of Rank Interactive revenue) performances online, offsetting the slide poker and sports betting.

As well as increased marketing of meccabingo.com and gcasino.com, Rank spent £300,000 on developing new websites which in plans to launch in Spain and the still-closed market in Italy in the first half of 2011.

Top Rank Espana, which runs 11 bingo halls across Spain, registered a continuing modest growth in revenue and EBITDA of £300,000 each.

Rank's continuing modernisation of its land-based operations saw it revise its capital investment estimate for the year upwards to £50m after an over 80 percent increase in capital spending to £27.1m in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2009.

Chief executive Ian Burke said: "Traditional forms of gaming remain important, but we see the long term growth of group profit being inextricably entwined with the combined evolution of gaming technology."

Rank spent £10.8m in the first half on buying 366 electronic roulette machines for its casinos and 5300 previously rented machines for its bingo halls.

Meanwhile, the re-launch of the Grosvenor Casino brand continues to progress with a total of 20 G Casinos to be open by the end of 2012 inculding 3 new builds.

As a result of improved service and modernisation, the group's land-based operations saw a 3.6 percent increase in footfall and a 1.5 percent increase in spend-per-visit as Rank invested in electronic upgrades as well as improvements to its food and drink service and better customer data collection.

"Grosvenor [Casino] continues to be the star of the show, but Mecca [Bingo] has also shown its first growth in customer visits for a decade," Nick Batram, analyst at KBC Peel Hunt said adding that the company should "continue to outperform."

"With debt down to £133m, the group also has the balance sheet to increase investment in core areas," he said.

Rank said it had cut debt by £53m to £133.4m as it received £39.4m VAT refund from the government, although it said Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs is appealing these decisions and the company will have to wait until ECJ hearings next year before being sure of keeping the money.

Simon French at Panmure Gordon said that Rank's profits-before-tax were slightly below expectations although he added that overall outlook for the company was "encouraging."

Mecca Bingo suffered because of increased VAT rates as EBITDA for business declined to £22.4m and operating profit was down 15 percent despite increased visitation and revenue growth.

The company expects to benefit, however, from January's reduction in bingo duty as Burke also told analysts at a results presentation yesterday that the UK's new Conservative-led government will bring positive "grown-up attitude" to regulation and taxation of UK's gambling industry after attacking Labour's tax policy in November.

The company pointed to policy commitments on gambling made by the Conservative party while in opposition and said it was hopeful for reform of taxation but admitted that it was not obvious when this might happen.

"It is encouraging that the party has at least recognized the inequitable nature of the current regime [of taxation on bingo]," Burke said.

He added that the Conservative policy on casinos is "less clear" but said: "The party does seem to have a refreshingly grown-up attitude to this sector of the market, openly acknowledging the high levels of customer protection that we offer and even suggesting that casinos are overtaxed."

The company's online sportsbook operation will have a close eye kept on it after another disappointing performance with revenue down 15 percent and completely failing to capitalize on the World Cup that was hailed by other companies as the "best for bookmakers in 40 years."

Burke said the business needed to stabilise revenue and that steps would be taken to "fix that business over the next 6-9 months" at which point Rank may have to look at the "strategic options".

[guidfarr] 02/8/2010 15:02

Rank bets £50m on expansion of 10 new casinos

[killieboy] 30/7/2010 19:50

Buy rec in Independent

[nellie1973] 29/7/2010 18:54

Peel Hunt BUY note out

[guidfarr] 29/7/2010 12:58

FLASH: Rank Group raised to buy from hold at KBC Peel Hunt, target price under review

Story provided by StockMarketWire.com ... read more

[guidfarr] 29/7/2010 12:05

managed to buy 20k of these at 113 this morning. the partygaming/bwin sector will also help uplift the sector further.

[killieboy] 29/7/2010 11:10

Good results methinks

[grizzly bare] 07/7/2010 17:11

Still looks like it's testing that magenta line ...

[grizzly bare] 05/7/2010 08:11

Well that magenta line has definitely been broken which is a worry ... it bounced but ... if it broken again then I fear we could be heading down.


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[grizzly bare] 29/6/2010 16:43

End of day ...that magenta line needs to hold. Back to the 101p where I sold too early!


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[grizzly bare] 29/6/2010 13:08

Hi Logan, glad to see you are still in there. Intersting couple of posts above.

The share price never did break my green line after all despite many attempts ......and the call of magenta prevailed as I feared.

With the money in the Bank and the share price down will Guoco use the chance to pounce at last?


free stock charts from www.advfn.com


Grizzly xx

[killieboy] 10/6/2010 10:47

Very quiet round here ................!

[scrapman] 28/5/2010 14:32

just as I was about to write this off, up she goes , anything newsworthy that I have missed ?

[killieboy] 25/5/2010 17:29

Was it not Warren Buffet who said "Be cautious when others are greedy and be greedy when others are cautious" or words to that effect??

[grizzly bare] 25/5/2010 10:55

Well despite many attempts the share price didn't manage to break the green line .....are we heading back to magenta now?

Time will tell.


free stock charts from www.advfn.com

[loganair] 25/5/2010 09:28

Down 5p this morning.

Buy on the rumour - Sell on the news

[loganair] 24/5/2010 09:13

That means Rank has now received a little over £100m in VAT back from HMRC.

If all bodes well and Rank win the final appeal they will be able to pay down 50% of their debt, leaving sufficent to pay us long suffering shareholders a Special dividend plus a few £m in the bank for refurbishments to their Casinos.

Grizzly - Please would you be so kind as to add the £42.5m to the £59.1m to the Number 4 on the Pro side making it a total of £101.6m and to delete the part after the brackets.