|
Granada has raised £1.3bn from the flotation of a 20% stake in its media interests, which will help to clear the way for the merger of its hotel and catering business with Compass later this month. 12-Jul-2000 Granada is planning to shed 1,150 jobs in its Box Clever TV rentals business, by closing a number of stores and its Berkshire headquarters. 10-Jul-2000 Granada has acquired NFER-Nelson, the provider of test and assessment products, for £20m, in order to expand its Granada Learning online education business. 02-Jun-2000 Granada and Compass are planning to merge to create a combined catering and hotels group called Granada Compass, while Granada's media operations would eventually be separated off. 16-May-2000 Granada is linking up with Hilton International and Accor to launch an internet-based hotel booking service. 11-May-2000 Granada is forming an alliance with PowerChannel Europe to offer free internet access via TV, and set-top boxes will be offered through its high-street rental stores. 19-Apr-2000 Granada is in discussions with the government about plans to set up park-and-ride facilities at motorway service stations, and at least six sites are being considered. 06-Apr-2000 Granada's Meridien Hotels & Resorts division is forming an alliance with Nikko Hotels International, which will involve merging their sales, marketing and reservation resources. 04-Apr-2000 Granada Hospitality is acquiring Poplar 2000, the operator of off-motorway service stations, from Pochin for £8.6m. 23-Mar-2000 Granada is planning to attach convenience stores to some of its Little Chef roadside restaurants. 21-Feb-2000 Granada is to restructure its contract catering business into three divisions, and the Granada Food Services banner will be dropped with the loss of about 30 jobs. 18-Feb-2000 Granada has bought a 9.1% stake in Australia's Seven Network for £56m, and has also set up a joint venture TV production company with Seven. 09-Feb-2000 Granada Food Services and Cremonini of Italy have won a £40m a year contract to provide food on Eurostar trains, through a joint venture company called Momentum. 08-Feb-2000 Granada has expressed interest in bidding for either Carlton Communications or United News & Media, which is expected to increase the chances of the proposed merger between Carlton and United being referred to the Competition Commission. 08-Jan-2000 Granada is planning to merge its TV rental business with Thorn's Radio Rentals, in a £1bn deal that will create a new company called Box Clever. 18-Dec-1999 Carlton Communications and Granada are each investing £20m in a joint venture to create a UK version of the Ask Jeeves internet search engine. 06-Dec-1999 Granada Media Group has acquired Brecon-based BlackCat, an educational software company, for undisclosed terms, as part of a strategy to build up a leading educational and online business. 06-Nov-1999 Granada Media Group is planning to form a TV production joint venture with Seven Network of Australia, in order to serve international markets. 04-Nov-1999 Granada is planning to sell the Saint-Georges Hotel in London's West End to Cairn Hotels in a £12m deal, while discussions are taking place with property developers about the sale of the Grosvenor House on Park Lane. 02-Nov-1999 Granada is to acquire the Harry Ramsden's chain of fish and chip restaurants for £20m, and plans to roll out the brand in its service stations throughout the country. 23-Oct-1999 Granada is to sell London's Hotel Russell to the Principal Hotels Group for £59m, and Principal will invest £10m upgrading the facilities. 22-Sep-1999 Granada Media has acquired Letts Educational, the textbook publisher, from BPP Holdings for £28m. 06-Sep-1999 Granada is forming a joint venture with the New York Times to produce documentaries and current affairs programmes for the international market. 30-Aug-1999 The BBC is linking up with Granada Media to form GB Productions in order to sell their comedy and drama formats in the US. 12-Aug-1999 Halfords is linking up with Granada to open 14 new roadside car parts stores. 24-Jul-1999 Granada and Pearson have sold stakes in BSkyB to Vivendi of France for a total £825m, and Vivendi now owns almost 25% of the pay-TV group. 23-Jul-1999 Granada is acquiring a 9.9% stake in Liverpool Football Club at a cost of £22m, and will help the club with commercial issues such as merchandising, publishing and media rights. 14-Jul-1999 Granada is looking for acquisitions to expand its media and leisure business internationally, following a period of rapid growth in the UK. 10-Jun-1999 Granada is planning to invest £30m in its online business over the next three years, including a free internet access service, educational facilities, interactive entertainment and electronic commerce. 07-Jun-1999 Carlton Communications is considering plans to link up with Granada to launch a new TV channel to show the most popular ITV programmes. 27-May-1999 Granada is acquiring an 18.6% stake in Scottish Media from Mirror Group for £110m, which could lead to a full takeover bid. 24-Mar-1999 Granada has begun a £50m expansion of its budget chain of Travelodge hotels across London, and a site has been acquired near Liverpool Street station in an attempt to benefit from the shortage of rooms in the City. 22-Feb-1999 Granada Food Services has acquired Summit Catering, the contract catering company, for £6.5m. 22-Feb-1999 Granada is planning to build a motel and restaurant at North Weald in Essex, which will create 40 jobs. 18-Feb-1999 Granada is to open two new motorway service stations at Derby and Doncaster and expand facilities at existing service stations, in a £70m investment that will create 1,500 jobs. 16-Feb-1999 Granada expects to create 2,500 jobs in its roadside catering and Travelodge business this year, as part of a previously-announced expansion plan. 04-Feb-1999 Granada is looking to sell 10 of its Heritage upmarket hotels for about £20m. 07-Jan-1999 Granada is discussing a possible marketing alliance with Nikko Hotels International, which would involve cross-promotion of hotels and the shared use of reservation systems. 19-Dec-1998 Granada has sold its Air Travel Group tour operator business to Thomson Travel Group for £20m. 19-Dec-1998 Granada is acquiring Artist Services, the Australian programme maker, in order to obtain a base to expand into the southern hemisphere. 11-Dec-1998 Granada is to focus on the development of its Travelodge and Posthouse hotel chains, and is also looking to set up an additional 50 Burger King road sites and expand its motorway catering operations by offering "towns by the motorway". 26-Nov-1998 Granada has sold a 6.5% stake in BSkyB to the Alex Brown investment bank for £429m, in order to end its conflicting interests in the two rival digital TV services. 14-Oct-1998 Granada and Littlewoods are planning a home shopping channel called Shop! and it will be launched on digital terrestrial TV in November. 21-Sep-1998 Granada has sold Granada Vending Services to management for £35m, as part of a strategy to sell off non-core assets. 10-Aug-1998 Burger King is linking up with Granada to open up to 100 co-branded Burger King/Little Chef roadside restaurants over the next five years. 20-Jun-1998 Granada Entertainments has sold the Camelot theme park and hotel in Chorley to management for £16m. 16-Jun-1998 Granada is in discussions to sell three unbranded London hotels to individual purchasers for a total of about £145m. 11-Jun-1998 Granada Group is to offer free set-top boxes to customers of its TV rental service to allow them to unscramble signals when British Digital Broadcasting launches its digital terrestrial TV service later this year. 06-May-1998 Granada is transferring a 9.5% stake in Granada Sky Broadcasting to BSkyB, leaving it with a 50% stake, in a deal that values GSB at about £100m. 08-Apr-1998 Littlewoods is linking up with Granada to launch a TV home shopping channel which will be available through British Digital Broadcasting's pay-TV package. 09-Mar-1998 Granada is introducing new working practices in its TV rental division in order to improve the efficiency of its repair work in customers' homes, by equipping employees with mobile phones and getting them to carry a stock of spare machines in their vans. 09-Mar-1998 Emap is linking up with Granada to produce a pilot TV version of the Max Power car magazine, in anticipation of the Independent Television Commission's imminent review of the ban on transforming magazines into TV programmes. 18-Feb-1998 Roadchef, the motorway service station operator, is up for sale for about £150m, and prospective buyers are expected to include Welcome Break and Granada. 02-Feb-1998 Granada has sold its 50% stake in Agip Forte International Hotels back to ENI, the Italian oil company, for undisclosed terms, as part of a programme to reduce debt. 26-Jan-1998 Granada is selling Cote France, its French motorway service stations, to Autogrill of Italy for £83m. 01-Dec-1997 Granada is considering the future sale of its 10.7% stake in BSkyB due to a conflict of interest in the increasingly competitive UK pay TV market. 21-Nov-1997 Celebrated is acquiring Restaurant House, which has the rights to run Chili's Grill and Bar restaurants in the UK, and has sold 15 AJ's Restaurants to Granada for £3m. 20-Nov-1997 Granada is expected to soon announce the sale of its French motorway service stations for about £80m, as talks continue with three interested parties. 17-Nov-1997 Granada's Forte Hotels division has won a management contract for a new 314-room hotel in London's Docklands which will open in spring 1999, and is also planning to invest £63m in its other London hotels. 30-Oct-1997 Granada is considering the sale of a minority stake in Granada Sky Broadcasting, its pay TV joint venture with BSkyB, in order to improve its image in the City. 27-Oct-1997 BP has won a 10-year contract worth over £1bn to supply fuel to half of Granada's motorway service stations. 30-Sep-1997 Manchester United is expected to announce a plan to set up its own TV channel in conjunction with BSkyB and Granada, although it will not have the rights to show its Premier League matches until at least 2002. 27-Sep-1997 Granada says it would consider the sale of its Heritage chain of 60 provincial hotels, worth over £200m, in order to focus on its Posthouse and Travelodge brands. 25-Sep-1997 Granada has sold its computer services business, Granada Computer Services, to a management buy-out for £89m. 23-Sep-1997 Granada is planning to sell its computer services business to a management team for about £80m. 20-Aug-1997 Granada is planning a takeover of Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television, which is thought to be worth about £800m, in a deal that would create a dominant force in independent television in the north of England. 10-Jun-1997 Granada has sold Brown's Hotel in London to Raffles Holdings of Singapore for £45m. 09-Jun-1997 Granada Group has decided against demerging its television interests from its leisure business, and will now focus on expanding it internationally. 23-May-1997 Granada has acquired Baxter and Platts, the contract catering company, for about £15m. 20-May-1997 Granada is considering plans to sell its computer services business, some London hotels and some of its Heritage hotels, but may now keep some of its Exclusive hotels. 24-Apr-1997 Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television is in discussions with Laser, the Granada-owned advertising sales house, about marketing the whole of the north of England to advertisers in order to try to prevent the further shift of ad revenue to London. 12-Mar-1997 Granada has sold the Plaza Athenee hotel in Paris to PA Holdings for £45m. 04-Mar-1997 Investcorp of Bahrain has acquired the Welcome Break motorway service centre chain from Granada for £473m, and now plans to expand the chain into other service areas and abroad. 19-Feb-1997 Chelsfield has acquired the Westbury hotels in London and New York from Granada for £90m. 19-Feb-1997 Asda is one of four companies bidding about £400m for the Welcome Break motorway service areas being sold off by Granada Group. 14-Feb-1997 Venture World has bought the American Adventure theme park in Derbyshire from Granada for £3.5m. 06-Feb-1997 Granada is to close 100 of its 562 high street TV rental stores with the loss of 250 jobs, as customers are now paying more by direct debit instead of visiting the stores. 01-Feb-1997 Granada Group is planning to expand the Meridien hotel chain, doubling the number of rooms to 50,000, partly by seeking management contracts offering packages of services such as restaurant concepts and health facilities. 17-Dec-1996 Granada Group is thought to be considering the demerger of its television interests from its hotels and catering business, possibly in the middle of 1997. 21-Nov-1996 Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group has acquired London's Hyde Park Hotel from Granada Group for £86m. 20-Nov-1996 Granada, Virgin and the BBC are all said to be planning to launch music television channels on cable and satellite in the UK, with Virgin expected to partner BSkyB and the BBC to partner Flextech. 06-Nov-1996 Granada Media has announced plans to introduce a number of cable TV channels targeted at specific regions of the UK and Europe. 15-Aug-1996 Six ITV companies - Granada, Carlton, United News & Media, Yorkshire-Tyne Tees, HTV and Scottish Television - are planning to start making 10 feature films a year and provide a £100m boost to the UK film industry over the next five years. 17-Jul-1996 Granada Sky Broadcasting is to announce seven new programme services for launch in autumn, including a Talk TV channel and a channel showing past programmes from LWT and Granada. 01-Jun-1996 BSkyB is acquiring the leases on two satellite transponders from Kinnevik of Scandinavia, and a third will be acquired by Granada Sky Broadcasting for the launch of two channels in the autumn. 29-May-1996 Granada has announced that it plans to keep the Meridien Hotel chain, where it expects to see good growth in profits. 23-May-1996 BSkyB is to launch eight new channels from Granada Television this autumn, and has confirmed it will launch digital satellite TV in the UK in autumn 1997. 08-May-1996 Granada has sold two motorway service stations to a management buy-out for £8.3m. 30-Apr-1996 Granada has said it will try to sell its Exclusive hotels and Welcome Break motorway restaurants in May, but will not sell the 84 Meridien hotels until later this year. 25-Apr-1996 Daily Mail & General Trust has bought a 20% stake in Independent Television News from Granada and Carlton for an initial £20.5m. 23-Apr-1996 Granada Group has announced 15% price increases at the 19 London hotels acquired from Forte, due to rising occupancy rates. 11-Apr-1996 Regal Hotels has bought the White Hart chain from Granada for £122m. 04-Apr-1996 Granada's new media group says it is looking to launch low-cost TV channels in France, Italy and Germany and possibly the US. 03-Apr-1996 Granada Group is creating a new division called the Granada Media Group which will include the Granada Television and LWT franchises, as a preparatory move for international expansion. 02-Apr-1996 Regal Hotel Group has agreed to buy 60 White Hart hotels from Granada. 09-Mar-1996 Granada has formed a hotels management division to run the hotels acquired in the Forte takeover. 02-Mar-1996 Granada has increased its stake in Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television to almost 25%. 16-Feb-1996 Granada has finally gained control of Forte, and is immediately looking to sell Forte's luxury hotels. 24-Jan-1996 Granada and BSkyB are to jointly launch eight TV channels, including a Gold channel, Talk TV, lifestyle channels and a shopping guide. 14-Dec-1995 Carlton Communications and Granada are running out of time to each sell 16% of the ITN shares by the end of the month, as required by the ITC. 06-Dec-1995 Channel 5 will generate £99m of revenue in its first year, hitting Carlton and Granada hardest, according to a report from Goldman Sachs. 27-Nov-1995 Granada Group has made a £3.3bn hostile takeover bid for Forte. 23-Nov-1995 Allied Leisure has acquired Granada's 19 bowling centres for £19.8m. 13-Nov-1995
|