We all have read about or seen for ourselves the bingo halls that seem to be closing every week so it’s no surprise that Gala Coral is in some financial trouble.  What was a bit shocking was learning just how high that debt was – ￡2.6 billion!  While the pressure from the smoking ban and the new bingo tax is great, there was obviously money woes far before those events to have that much debt.

Now the three private equity owners behind Gala Coral (Candover, Cinven and Permira) are about to give up half their equity in exchange for cancellation of ￡540 million of their massive debt.  Reports have said that this would enable the group to free up cash that can be invested back into the business rather than their cash going to debt payments every month.

Gala Coral stilll has almost 2,000 betting offices, 148 bingo halls, 27 casinos and two greyhound tracks along with their online operations.  They currently employ almost 20,000 people.

The debt-equity swap is supposed to be finalised by the end of October and then perhaps we will see if this enables Gala to recover.  They have not released any details on just what they plan on doing with the business but it’s likely to expect more of an online push than before with it’s lower overhead and operating costs.