LEI: 213800TXKD6XZWOFTE12
18 April 2024
The Rank Group
Plc
Q3 trading
update
Trading performance in line
with expectations
The Rank Group Plc ('Rank' or the
'Group') announces a trading update for quarter ended 31 March 2024
('Q3').
Group like-for-like ('LFL') Net
Gaming Revenue ('NGR') for Q3 was up 6% to £182.3m, with both the
venues and digital channels growing by 6% on a LFL
basis.
LFL
NGR
|
Q3 2023/24
£m
|
YOY
change
|
Q3 YTD
2023/24
£m
|
YOY
change
|
Grosvenor venues
|
80.0
|
3%
|
247.5
|
8%
|
Mecca venues
|
37.3
|
12%
|
104.5
|
10%
|
Enracha venues
|
10.0
|
9%
|
29.5
|
9%
|
Digital
|
55.0
|
6%
|
163.4
|
7%
|
Group
|
182.3
|
6%
|
544.9
|
8%
|
Grosvenor venues grew LFL NGR by 3%
with a 5% growth in visit numbers. With this being the
seasonally quieter period, average weekly NGR in the quarter was
£6.2m, up 2% on the prior year and down 2% on Q2.
Mecca venues LFL NGR grew by 12% in
the quarter, driven by a 5% increase in customer visits and a 7%
increase in spend per visit, particularly benefitting from strong
trading over the Mother's Day and Easter weekends.
Digital NGR grew by 6% in the
quarter with UK growth of 4% and Spanish growth of 20%. In the UK,
Mecca performed strongly with NGR up 21%. Grosvenor grew by just
1%, impacted by a weaker gaming margin with some big customer
wins. Planned reductions in marketing investment led to a 13%
reduction in NGR for the Group's other UK digital brands with
improvements in the return on investment delivered in March and
continuing into Q4. The new content management system has been
successfully launched for both the Mecca and Grosvenor online sites
in the quarter, which improves both operational efficiency and
speed to market for customer proposition enhancements. In Spain,
the Yo brands continued to deliver strong NGR growth.
Rank has entered an agreement to
sell its holding in Passion Gaming, an Indian online rummy
business, for a nominal consideration. The disposal is
expected to complete in the coming weeks.
Outlook
Performance has continued to improve
in April, and we expect LFL operating profit for the year ending 30
June 2024 to be in line with the Group's expectations.
John O'Reilly, Chief Executive,
said:
"We continue to make good progress
across both our venues and online businesses, with Q3 trading very
much in line with the Board's expectations. Performance continues
to improve, and we have the very important land-based reforms from
the Government's White Paper to look forward to, which we hope to
start implementing in the coming months."
Forthcoming announcements
Rank will announce its preliminary
results for the 12 months ending 30 June 2024 on 15 August
2024.
Ends
Contacts:
|
Rank
|
Sarah Powell - investor
relations
|
Tel: +44 1628 504 303
|
Media Enquiries:
|
FTI Consulting LLP (PR adviser to
Rank)
|
Edward Bridges
|
Tel: +44 20 3727 1067
|
Alex Beagley
|
Tel: +44 20 3727 1045
|
Notes to editors:
1. Net Gaming
Revenue represents Gross Gaming Revenue after customer
incentives.
2.
Like-for-like excludes the effects of club closures, club
reopenings and FX.
3. All
comparisons are with the same period in 2022/23.
4. Q3 is the
period 1 January to 31 March.