Rank Group chair to stand down in October

Rank Group chairman Ian Burke has confirmed he will not stand for re-election at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) in October.

Burke joined Rank as CEO in 2006 before becoming executive chair in 2011 and non-executive chairman in 2014.

Speaking about his decision, Burke expressed pride at Rank’s achievements over the period, adding he would step down in the knowledge the company has a strong management team and board which will “take the business forward through its transformation programme”.

Rank’s senior independent director Chris Bell will initiate a recruitment process to find Burke’s successor.

In addition to the impending departure, Rank confirmed that CFO Bill Floydd, who joined Rank in November 2018 will join the company board with immediate effect.

John O’Reilly, who was himself only appointed as Rank’s CEO in April 2018, paid tribute to Burke’s “key role” within the business, expressing his thanks for “his invaluable support and counsel” following his appointment as CEO.

In a trading update this morning for the first quarter of 2019, Rank revealed a 2% year-on-year rise in its digital gross gaming revenues for the period, with its business revenues remaining largely flat.

Digital GGR from its Grosvenor business grew by 6% during the quarter, with net gaming revenues up 15% due to more efficient bonusing.

Mecca net gaming revenues grew 10% during the quarter, while the company confirmed its YoBingo brand continues “to perform well and in line with our acquisition plan”.

Rank said its three-year transformation programme remained on track, having delivered the expected cost savings during the quarter.

Analysts Regulus Partners highlighted Rank’s operational improvements as “clearly bearing fruit” but expressed concern about structural issues in balancing its growing digital business with its declining land-based revenues.

“We believe these structural issues either need to be addressed by significant diversification (swerving the problem) or a serious attempt to make largely 90’s retail formats relevant to the 21^st century (fixing it) – both are much tougher to deliver than the operational tweaking and ‘toe in the water’ innovation experiments delivered hitherto,” Regulus added.