History
The company was formed to acquire the business interests of the Rank Organisation which itself was formed out of the business interests of its founder, J. Arthur Rank.
Until the start of the 21st century, the group still had a tremendous amount of leisure holdings; however, as the decade progressed they sold their interests in Pinewood Studios and the Odeon cinema chain. It also divested itself of its engineering companies such as its share in Rank Xerox, selling Rank Leisure Machine Services to Gametec plus all its Butlins, Warner and Haven Holidays holiday and recreation facilities, which were all sold to Bourne Leisure. They then sold off their nightclub division Rank Entertainment as well as their share of interest in Universal Studios Florida and disposed of their vast Rank film library to Carlton Communications with whom they had recently also sold their Rank Advertising Film Division.
In December 2005, as Rank sold Deluxe Film (formerly Rank Film Laboratories) for £400m, it effectively ended their sixty-year association with the film and cinema business. This meant Rank Leisure had become focussed on their gaming operations with their remaining businesses interests concentrating on Grosvenor and G Casinos, Top Rank and Mecca Clubs, and online gaming through Rank Interactive after the company acquired the Blue Square gaming business in 2003.
Finally leaving all non-gaming leisure behind, in December 2006, Rank sold the Hard Rock business, excluding the London casino venue which was rebranded to a G casino, to the Seminole Tribe of Florida for US$965 million. In May 2012 Rank bought 23 casinos from Gala Coral, which, if approved by shareholders and the regulator will make it the biggest operator of casinos in the UK.
Read more about this topic: The Rank Group
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His function is too vague, his presence always seems one too many, his profit looks too easy, and even when you admit that he has a necessary function, you feel that this function is, as it were, a personification of something that in an ethical society would not need to exist. If people could deal with one another honestly, they would not need agents.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“When the history of this period is written, [William Jennings] Bryan will stand out as one of the most remarkable men of his generation and one of the biggest political men of our country.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)