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The financial affairs for the Gala Coral group who of course own Gala Bingo are looking far from pretty in fact they are facing an interest bill of a whopping £550 million pounds! I would be in despair if I were facing an interest bill of £500 per month, let alone one at this astounding figure. According to ‘This is Money’ Gala Coral are in dept to the tune of £2.5 billion, which is why they are currently trying to restructure their business so their company does not get split up.

The Gala Bingo Coral group are owned by three private equity firms, Cinven, Candover and Permina. A spokesperson for them said, “Despite 'resilience in the face of a severe economic downturn' full-year operating profit fell from £362m to £336m on flat sales of £1.28bn.

As we know Gala Bingo have been in talks with their lenders for some time. It is their aim to agree a restructuring plan, which would see them turn £540 million of their debt into equity as well as being committed to repay £500 million of their dept pile.

Gala Bingo have been on some of the best PR campaigns throughout 2009. They teamed up with Mrs Obama to raise money for charity and ended up winning a Gold Award for this initiative. A 25 strong team of Gala Bingo employees are now in the Guinness book or world records for playing the world’s highest bingo game at an altitude of 17,500ft up Mount Everest.

So despite what is going on behind the scenes of the Gala Bingo Coral group they have remained on their charity drive where they hope to raise over £1 million for Sue Ryder Care.

More than 100 land based bingo clubs have closed down during the past three years and a fair few of these have been Gala Bingo clubs. The gaming industry have been hit where it hurts with new gaming laws, the smoking ban, tax etc, etc as the list goes on and on.

We hope Gala Bingo can pull themselves out of the financial hole they seem to be in and their restructuring plan comes off.