The Rank Group said it has seen a slowdown in trading across its UK venues for the last three weeks, and in recent days it has inevitably witnessed a sharper decline.

The company said its UK venues remained profitable last week, despite the slowdown.

The company noted that it has traded well since the start of the second half of the 2019/20 financial year, and in line with the guidance issued on 16 January 2020.

Following the UK Government guiding consumers to avoid leisure venues, modelling shows that the impact of closures would result in monthly net cash costs for the Group of approximately 25 million pounds before mitigating actions and around 17 million pounds with mitigation. In addition, the Group has tax and duty payments of around 40 million pounds falling due in April.

The company said it is not able to provide financial guidance for the current financial year ending 30 June 2020, citing the continued uncertainty.