Rank Slides as Malaysia's Genting Says It Doesn't Plan Offer

April 3 (Bloomberg) -- Rank Group Plc, the second-largest U.K. bingo hall operator, dropped the most in more than five months in London trading after Malaysia's Genting Bhd. denied speculation that it plans to make an offer.

Genting, Asia's largest listed casino company, said in a statement today it has ``no intention'' of making a bid for Maidenhead, England-based Rank. The Daily Mail reported this week that the Kuala Lumpur-based company had made an approach about a cash offer worth 485 million pounds ($959 million).

Rank fell as much as 11 percent in the English capital and was down 9.25 pence, or 9.3 percent, to 90.5 pence at 12:55 p.m. local time, the steepest percentage drop since Oct. 15. The stock gained 9.9 percent on April 1 after the Daily Mail said Genting proposed paying 124 pence a share.

``This decline today says to me the market thought talks were maybe closer on a takeover,'' said William Birch, an analyst at Jefferies International Ltd. who rates the stock ``hold.''
Genting fell 2.3 percent to 6.4 ringgit on the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange, extending this year's drop to 19 percent.

Rank has become a takeover target after its shares slid 59 percent last year because of an indoor-smoking ban and changes to gambling laws that hurt sales. Genting, which became the U.K. casino-market leader on buying Stanley Leisure Plc in 2006, has built a stake of about 11 percent in the British gaming company, which has a market value of about 355 million pounds.
Separately, Rank said today that Peter Gill will resign as finance director after almost three years with the company.

New Finance Director

Gill, who oversaw a 1.2 billion-pound restructuring of the U.K. company, will leave in June and be replaced by Paddy Gallagher, chief financial officer of Quadriga Worldwide Ltd.

Under the restructuring overseen by Gill, Rank sold film and media businesses and its Hard Rock restaurant, hotel and casino chain to focus on gaming in Britain. Rank, which owns the Blue Square betting Web site, also agreed in February to transfer its pension plan to a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. unit, avoiding 30.8 million pounds of future payments.

Gill ``was generally viewed as someone better suited to the old Rank,'' said Jefferies' Birch. ``This new guy has more of a technological background. For Rank to have a future they need to develop Blue Square and bring more technology into bingo.''

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