Rank Chief Retires On A Year's Pay

Mike Smith is to leave the struggling Rank leisure group in March after a seven-year tenure as chief executive during which he has been forced to restructure the Bingo and Casino concern.

The 59-year-old will be paid up to the end of the company's financial year in December 2006. He retires a year before the company's official retirement age and is expected to receive a lump sum payment in the region of £900,000.

He is to replaced by Ian Burke, chief executive of privately owned fitness clubs group Holmes Place. Mr Burke, who used to be a managing director of the competing Gala bingo business, takes the helm at a time when the group has been the subject of takeover speculation. Late last year it emerged that Rank had rejected an approach from bookmaker William Hill and there has been talk of a private equity offer. The shares, which had underperformed but were buoyed by takeover talk late last year, have softened this month. They closed at 273p, down 1.75p.

The departure of Mr Smith was announced as the group was expected to complete the disposal of its Deluxe film processing arm. But the price agreed with Ron Perelman, the American tycoon behind the Revlon cosmetics empire, disappointed investors who are now braced for a dividend cut possibly sweetened by a share buyback.

The sale of Deluxe was part of a series of changes demanded by frustrated shareholders. The group now includes Mecca bingo halls, Grosvenor casinos and Hard Rock Cafes, having sold off its Butlins holiday camps, Pinewood film studios, Odeon Cinemas and Tom Cobleigh pubs.