European Leisure's last bid for a rival British leisure group ended up with the then chief executive Michael Ward becoming a guest of Her Majesty for a couple of years propping up the euro share price to make sure that the hotly-contested hostile bid for Midsummer Leisure succeeded.

Now the revamped Euro, headed by Ian Rock, seems headed for another hostile bid, this time for the British snooker and 10-pin bowling group Waterfall Holdings.

Euro has been steadily building up its stake in Waterfall and bought another two million shares last week to take its stake to almost 24 per cent.

A full bid for Waterfall would probably involve more than £20 million, a price tag that Euro could cope with easily.

Euro still has a Dublin listing, but now has very few Irish shareholders after Irish investors who were on the register were diluted down to virtually nothing when the group was rescued by a consortium of banks. The banks still dominate the share register, with Schroders, Barclays and Flemings having nearly 33 per cent between them.