Wednesday, July 05, 2006

As reported by the Scotsman: "Britain's love affair with shopping and
gambling is reflected in the latest league table of the country's biggest
private companies. "Gala, the betting and bingo firm, is expected to take
top spot ahead of the department store group John Lewis Partnership, whose
three-year reign as the biggest firm ended last year when it was toppled by
Coral Eurobet. "Gala's £2.18bn acquisition of Coral last October created a
group with combined sales well north of £6bn. "The sales figure is
comfortably higher than that of John Lewis, which reported turnover of
£5.1bn ex-VAT. The Coral deal also turned Gala into Britain's biggest
private equity owned business. ".Now in its fifth year, and published today,
the table ranks Britain's 100 biggest private companies by latest sales and
this year gambling firms and retailers feature among the biggest in the
country. BetFred is among the bookies in the list and Bet365 makes its first
appearance."