Gala Coral is a large online gambling concern in the United Kingdom. It's history of late has been a struggle for ownership and control of it's assets. A
restructured company is emerging from a series of setbacks experienced during negotiations between it's private equity owners Permira, Candover and Cinven against its debt holders. Debt has plagued the company without much relief for quite some time. Middle ground lenders have apparently secured a deal to win full control of the company's equity. It was reported by the Telegraph newspaper that executive chairman of Gala Coral, Neil Goulden, has signed a contract to stay on and oversee a possible listing of the firm as a public company. The ultimate goal was to see the company reduce it's massive debt this being achieved by the lenders making a trade off of debt for a thirty percent stake in the operation. Plus a large cash injection for control of the rest of the firm. Goulden was almost one hundred percent sure the deal would be ratified soon with the only possible glitch being the possible rejection by the outgoing private equity firms. Goulden told the newspaper, "If they do not play ball, we will be forced to put the company into a pre-pack administration. Everything will still get done – but it will take longer." The new mezzanine investors need to protect their offshore status so when this change of ownership comes down the plan is to move the senior management of the company to Luxembourg. "It is an incredible company that has been over-burdened by its balance sheet. We have out-traded Ladbrokes, William Hill and Rank making 335 million GBP profit last year. I see no reason why we will not be able to meet our timetable for going public," Goulden was quoted as saying.
