Granada Rentals chief last of the old guard to go

THE continued shake-up of Granada, the television-to-bowling group, under Gerry Robinson, its new chief executive, has brought another casualty.

Tom Cole, the chief executive of the group's largest division, Granada UK Rental, has left 'to pursue new career opportunities'.

His departure follows the announcement of large-scale redundancies and cost-cutting on the TV rentals side, which vies with Thorn EMI's Radio Rentals for position as the UK's largest. A Granada spokesman said he understood Mr Cole was going to work as a management consultant.

Mr Cole is to be replaced from Monday by Graham Wallace, Granada's finance director, leaving a vacancy on Granada's board. Headhunters have been instructed to search for a new finance director.

The departure of Mr Cole means that in just over a year, every division within the Granada group has seen a change at the top in addition to Mr Robinson replacing Derek Lewis as chief executive.

Only Alex Bernstein, the chairman, remains of the senior executives at the group 18 months ago when it was forced to go to the market to raise pounds 163m through a rights issue and sell its bingo operation to Bass.

Last year, prior to Mr Robinson's departure, the management of the troubled business services side was changed. John Cullen, who took over as chairman, has rationalised the operation and made more than 600 people redundant.

Earlier this year David Plowright, the head of Granada TV, resigned after an acrimonious row with Mr Robinson over the future direction of the ITV franchise holder.

He was replaced by Andrew Quinn, who had been running the TV rental side though his background was in Granada TV. He lasted only a few months before he was tempted away to take the prestigious job of chief executive of the ITV network.

Mr Quinn was replaced by Charles Allen, a Scottish accountant who had worked with Mr Robinson at Compass Group, the caterer, and had been brought to Granada to run the leisure side.

The leisure division, which includes motorway services, bowling and hotels, now has no divisional head and the chiefs of the various operations report directly to Mr Robinson.

Granada's shares, which fell below 150p last year, rose 4p to 262p yesterday.