It has reported that its UK venues under the Grosvenor and Mecca brands were closed for the entirety of Q3 2020/21, while its Enracha venues in Spain were open for part of the prior year's third quarter, with very severe capacity restrictions.
The most recent comparable third quarter is back in March 2019. Against this comparative period, Grosvenor venues' net gaming revenue (NGR) was down 14% and Mecca down by 25%. Enracha venues saw a period of slight recovery with NGR down just 2%.
In terms of digital content, the UK NGR was down 1% year on year. Grosvenor digital grew NGR by 3% as it continues to benefit from omni-channel players. In contrast, Mecca digital NGR was down 11% due to the impact of its migration onto the RIDE platform in January.
The performance of Rank’s other digital brands was varied; for example, with a growth of 42% of brands operating on the RIDE platform which was partly offset by a revenue decline of 25% in the non-proprietary brands due to affordability restrictions in H1 2021/22 by other operators. In addition, international digital dropped by 5%.
The Rank Group noted that despite this traditionally low seasonal period in the Grosvenor venues, it anticipates an improvement after April. Performance trends will remain to be seen as it gauges the rate of return to office workers in city centres and overseas customers to London as we move towards the summer.
And due to the Q3 trends, numbers of UK venue visitors and continued inflationary costs, Rank is updating its previously guided EBIT range of £55m-£65m ($72m-$85m) for the year ending 30 June 2022 to a range of £47m-£55m.
John O'Reilly, Rank CEO, said: "The performance of our venues softened in March, and this has continued into the first few weeks of Q4, impacting our current expectations for our full year performance.
"We recognise the pressures on UK consumers but are confident that the improvements we are continuing to make to the customer proposition and the investments in our venues, alongside the gradually reducing impact of the pandemic and, with it, the return of overseas customers, position us well for the year ahead."
Rank is set to announce its preliminary results for the 12 months ending 30 June 2022 on 18 August.
