Is the end game for Rank Group, the embattled bingo and casino operator, finally in sight? It is a decade since I first wrote of Rank as a possible bid target, yet still it stutters along, albeit in a rather slimmed-down state.

But with any number of predators now circling, it does feel as though my prediction may finally come true.

Genting, the Malaysian gaming group, and the wealthy Richardson property family have both built stakes of almost 10 per cent, while Guoco, the Singaporean owner of Thistle Hotels, is also reputed to be sniffing around.

I recently heard a vague whisper that Trevor Hemmings, the ever-so-clever owner of the Blackpool Tower, had been looking at the company and yesterday a well-placed City source suggested to me that Joe Lewis, the Bahamas-based billionaire, may have taken a position.

Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets!

What goes around...

The BT Tower, which I still think of as the Post Office Tower, could become a hotel. The telecoms giant is rumoured to have appointed a team of designers to draft some preliminary ideas on how the 620ft cylindrical tower could be converted into a boutique hotel. According to Estates Gazette, this would involve expanding the base of the tower to create a six- or seven-storey hotel and the reopening of the revolving restaurant on the 34th floor. The tower, which was built between 1961 and 1965, was once dismissed by an architectural bible as “poorly proportioned and clumsily detailed”, though today it is Grade II listed and seen as an icon of the swinging ’60s. When it opened, the restaurant was run by Butlins but ever since an IRA bomb exploded in the toilets in 1971 BT has shown an aversion to letting in the public, preferring to retain it as a communications centre and offices.

Sign of the times: Last Christmas, Friends Provident, the life and pensions provider, sent colleagues luxury hampers. This year an e-card arrives, featuring homeless people singing Christmas carols. With Friends chairman Sir Adrian Montague in the thick of a full-scale review after being dumped at the altar by Resolution, there seems something strangely appropriate about its support for the homeless charity Crisis at Christmas.

Earlier this week we suggested that Lehman Brothers was seeking a global head of communications. In fact, Lehman already has two global co-heads of communications, Rose Shabet and Andrew Gowers, the former FT editor. The investment banking division is looking for a PR, to be based on Wall Street.

And this is what those statements really mean

The financial crisis and growing economic uncertainty has prompted Mark Brumby at Blue Oar Securities to muse on the real meaning of some of the terminology increasingly being used by companies in trading statements. Here are a few of the best ones: Mixed trading: poor We are confident: we hope We are confident but: profit warning Investment: loss Strategic: expensive or loss-making Long-term strategic: permanently loss-making Fast-moving market: we don’t understand it In the longer-term interest: not in the short-term interest The reinvestment of margin in enhancing a value offering: price cut.

If only he were joking.

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