The Rank Group releases end-of-year results

The Rank Group has released its preliminary results for the 12-month period ending June 30.

Operating profit for the second half of the period reached £16.1m which, added to the £4.2m profit from H1, gave the operator a total of £20.3 for the year.

“The return of customers to our Grosvenor and Mecca venues continues to pick up and our second half numbers give cause for optimism after a very challenging couple of years,” said John O’Reilly, chief executive of The Rank Group.

“During that time, our UK venues have faced a surge in energy costs, high wage inflation, a tightening in the regulatory environment, the slow return of overseas visitors to London’s casinos and the more general pressures on the consumer’s discretionary expenditure.

“However, energy costs have stabilised, inflation appears to now be easing, customers continue to slowly return to both our Grosvenor and our Mecca venues and we now expect to deliver good levels of revenue and profit growth.

“Our digital business is performing strongly, and we have a strong pipeline of customer facing developments in both our UK and Spanish brands to drive revenue and profit growth. We are very focused on delivering a market leading cross-channel experience for our Grosvenor and Mecca customers with several key developments landing during this new financial year.

“The UK government’s white paper on gambling reform sets out a number of important public policies which will enable the land-based bingo and casino sectors to modernise the customer proposition to better meet the needs of today’s consumers. The delivery of the secondary legislation to enable these reforms cannot come soon enough and we are well advanced with plans to maximise these opportunities.

“I am hugely grateful to my colleagues across the group who continue to excite, entertain and protect their customers, provide support to their local communities and contribute fully to the progress we are making in the transformation of Rank.”