The Rank Group and Rank España in Spain (10 bingo clubs). Rank is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The company was formed to acquire the business interests of the Rank Organisation, which itself was formed out of the business interests of its founder, J. Arthur Rank. Until the start of the 21st century, the group still had a tremendous amount of leisure holdings; however, as the decade progressed it divested these interests, beginning with Pinewood Studios and the Odeon cinema chain. It also shed its engineering interests, such as its share in Rank
Lime Grove Studios success in the United States (where it was distributed by Universal Pictures). The studios prospered under Gaumont-British, and in 1941 were bought by the Rank Organisation. By then Rank had a substantial interest in Gainsborough Pictures, and "The Wicked Lady" (1945), among other Gainsborough melodramas, was shot at Lime Grove. In 1949 the BBC bought Lime Grove Studios as a "temporary measure"—because they were to build Television Centre at nearby White City—and began converting them from film to television use, reopening them on 21 May 1950. Lime Grove would be used for many BBC Television programmes over the next forty-two