Hard Rock founder to pursue gaming

Friday, June 14, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

The sale of the Hard Rock Cafe restaurant franchise to a London group should allow its founder more time to concentrate on the gaming industry, analysts say.

Peter Morton, who will continue to own and operate the $100 million Hard Rock hotel-casino in Las Vegas, sold the global franchise of the Hard Rock Cafes to The Rank Organisation Plc, a British company that already owns the rights to the Hard Rock in the eastern half of the United States and some international properties.

Morton has said he wants to devote more time to developing other Hard Rock gaming properties, primarily in the West and in some international territories. Lake Tahoe-based Harveys is Morton's partner in the Las Vegas venture, which opened more than a year ago and is in the middle of a multimillion-dollar expansion expected to be completed in 1997.

The cafe franchise was sold to Rank for about $410 million.

"I founded the Hard Rock in London 25 years ago," Morton said in a statement announcing the transaction. "It's time for a change and I am happy that the Hard Rock will be united again. When we started out, we had no idea that one day the Hard Rock would be a global franchise generating almost half a billion dollars in sales."

Hard Rock, immortalized in song by Carol King, has made millions in T-shirt sales with a "Save the Planet" environmental mantra. The hotel-casino hosts rock concerts in its showroom, and casino chips bear the likenesses of rock legends like Jimi Hendrix.

Leeds Group Inc., a New York investment bank, represented Morton in the transaction.