A FORMER bakery boss who now heads the firm behind Britain's new box office smash has proved a hit in the city - and with his own bank manager!

Just days after Shooting Fish, the romantic comedy starring Kate Beckinsale, passed the £2 million box office mark, the firm behind it - Winchester Multimedia - announced bumper profits.

Chief executive Gary Smith, a former Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School pupil from Blackburn who set up Winchester four years ago, has also seen his paper fortune soar on the back of the success of Shooting Fish.

Keen Blackburn Rovers fan Gary owns more than a third of the stock market-listed company which has seen its shares rocket as news of the film's success and favourable reviews spread.

The firm, worth more than £11 million, has seen its shares rise by more than 30 per cent in the past three weeks.

The success of Shooting Fish helped catapult Winchester out of the red with results showing pre-tax profits in the six months to September 30 were £257,000, compared with losses of £533,000 a year earlier.

Weeks before the film's release spoke of his belief of its potential in an interview in East Lancs 2000.

"It is just the kind of feel good film people will want to see," he predicted.

Gary, educated at Longshaw Primary School before QEGS, hit the headlines in his home town in 1987 when he bought out the former Kenyons Bakery from the receivers.

He now works in London and lives with his family in Birmingham - in a house called Ewood Lodge named after the home of his favourite football team.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.