Isle Of Capri Pulls Out Of Casino Industry In UK

Isle of Capri Inc. built a casino in the UK in the hopes that their gambling laws would be changing. Now, the company is giving up on that idea and has sold the Coventry casino.

The casino operator sold Coventry to The Rank Group for around $940,000. They received a much larger sum of money from the sale of existing lease requirement for Ricoh Arena. Isle of Capri made around $11.2 million for that sale, also to the Rank Group.

Isle's decision regarding the Coventry casino seems to have hinged on finances, with Senior Vice President of UK Operations, Donn Mitchell saying the company sold the casino "in order to substantially mitigate the negative financial impact we expected to incur should we have continued to operate our facility there moving forward."

The immediate news of the casino sale gave a boost to the company's stock, rising to $9.35 in morning trading, before falling to a low of $8.49 for the day. At midday, the price had been fluctuating around where it began the day at $9 a share.

Isle of Capri still operates casinos throughout the US. While their UK endeavor is now complete, they have no intentions on making any moves with their US casinos. With the economy still sagging, Isle is now able to focus on maximizing their profits from the US casinos.

April 23, 2009
Posted By April Gardner
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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