The sale of the Manchester based bingo company, Buckingham Bingo has finally been completed with deals totalling £20m which is just a fraction of the £90 million price paid for it in 2005.

Two bingo operators, Club3000 and Castle Leisure, have acquired the nine bingo clubs.

Club3000, which is by entrepreneur Brian Fraser, has acquired the Buckingham Bingo clubs in Middleton, Trafford, Walkden, Peterlee in Co Durham, Bradford, Preston and Huyton, Liverpool. Brian Fraser already operates three other clubs, in Scotland and south Wales under the Club3000 brand.

Mr Fraser commented: “I am absolutely delighted to have purchased the clubs and look forward to providing a special bingo experience to new and existing customers.

“The end a great bingo company.”

Castle Leisure a privately-owned group which has 11 bingo clubs following the deal, acquired the Buckingham Bingo clubs in Corby and Bootle. The company clearly has ambitious concerns after moving into the bingo market in England in December with the purchase of the club in Birmingham. Prior to December the company locations were all within Wales.

A spokeswoman commented: “We have been trying to find the right locations to bring our product to England and are delighted to have acquired these prime sites.”

Jonathan Boyers, the head of corporate finance at KPMG responsible for dealing with the Buckingham Bingo disposal, added: “Buckingham Bingo is a profitable business with high-quality bingo estate and the sale process that we conducted attracted a high level of interest from potential purchasers.

“This renewed appetite for quality assets represents welcome news for existing bingo operators in a market that has been impacted in recent years by the smoking ban and other well-documented legislative changes.”

Buckingham Bingo History

While Buckingham Bingo was a thriving company and an elite operator within the bingo industry up until a few years ago the company has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons – mostly to do with the extensive debts it has associated with it. Unfortunately the company has been unable to deal with its debts and failed to become a success and investors have suffered the consequences.

The company which was sold to Alchemy Partners in 2005 for £90m is expected to be worth a fraction of that amount today.

Buckingham Bingo was founded by Panico Panayi around 40 years ago. It has 9 purpose built bingo clubs and is the largest independent bingo operator in the north of England. It was sold to Alchemy Partners when the industry peaked in 2005 for £90m. This was roughly the same time that Beacon Bingo was sold for £100m. Following the smoking ban and changes in legislation the value of the company plummeted and Alchemy were given the choice to inject significant amounts of cash into the business or write off their stake leaving Barclays in full control of the company. Alchemy went with the latter and Barclays Ventures was handed control.