Rank Organisation - Growth

Growth

The company grew quickly, largely through acquisition. Significant developments included:

• 1938 - Odeon Cinemas was purchased
• 1939 - Denham Film Studios were merged with the facilities at Pinewood and Amalgamated Studios in Borehamwood was acquired.
• 1941 - Purchase of the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation, which also owned Gainsborough Pictures, 251 cinemas and the Lime Grove Studios.
• 1942 - UK sites of Paramount Cinemas purchased
• Late 1940s - A majority shareholding in Allied Cinemas and Irish Cinemas Ltd was gained, becoming the largest exhibition circuit in Ireland (a position maintained until the early 1980s)

By the late 1940s J Arthur Rank (or the Rank Organisation as it was now called), owned:

• Five major film studio complexes, Pinewood Film Studios, Denham Film Studios, Ealing Studios, Lime Grove Studios and Islington Studios. (The studios at Lime Grove were sold to the BBC in 1949.)
• 650 UK cinemas (Odeon, Gaumont and Paramount chains) plus various international holdings, including subsidiaries in Canada and The Netherlands
• General Film Distributors (later Rank Film Distributors), including the UK distribution rights to Universal Pictures
• Rank Screen Advertising
• DeLuxe Laboratories
• 1966 - RANK XEROX - Joint venture entered into with Haloid Photographic (Xerox Corporation) of America, to manufacture and promote its range of plain paper photocopying equipment. Many of the waning film company assets were hastily converted and pressed into 'Rank Xerox' service. This venture was a huge gamble but ultimately the company's saving grace, until, once more in financial difficulties, it signed off increasing percentages of its holdings, to the parent company, finally becoming fully integrated into XEROX in the late 1990s.