Former Gala Man Makes Play For Bingo Clubs

A former executive at Gala, the gaming group, is vying to buy Buckingham Bingo, a bingo-hall operator in the north-west, for more than £90m.

Brian Mattingley, one-time finance director at Gala, has lined up backing from Duke Street Capital, the private-equity group.

Mattingley, who is a non- executive director of online gaming company 888.com, is understood to face competition from a handful of other private-equity groups that are also bidding to acquire Buckingham from its majority shareholder and chairman, Panico Panayi.

Duke Street knows Mattingley well. The firm supported him when it financed the management buyout of Ritz Bingo in 1997 from the old Vardon leisure conglomerate.

Buckingham has 10 clubs, mostly in the northwest of England. Panayi owns the clubs through his holding company, Manchester-based Cambos Enterprises. He could not be reached for comment, and Duke Street declined to comment.

Cambos was founded in 1969 and opened the first Buckingham Bingo club in Preston the following year. The company also owns a pub and restaurant in Bolton, but it is not clear whether this will be sold alongside the bingo operations.

Britain's two biggest bingo chains, Gala and Mecca, part of the Rank Group, are unlikely to be interested because a deal would almost certainly attract the attention of the competition authorities.

The bingo market has become increasingly attractive to private-equity groups. Although it is a mature market, it is a sector with good stability, strong cashflows and should benefit from the broader deregulation of the gambling industry.

A report by Mintel, a market-research firm, suggests that the industry could grow by 23% over the next five years.

Although the outlook remains positive for the sector, there is one big worry on the horizon - the impact of any smoking ban. Industry figures are known to be concerned about any downturn in business as a result of a ban.

Mike Smith, chief executive of Rank, said: "We do have a concern about this. One of the big issues for us is to make sure any ban is equally and fairly applied, not just in gaming but in pubs and other places as well."