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Alton Towers 2011 Profits - sharp fall

mrbrightside said:
Merlin will be floated on the stock exchange soon enough. Then it'll have to answer to shareholders. Who knows if that will improve Towers or make it worse...


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We were discussing this yesterday on the way back from Towers, and Diogo reckons that in the long run, it could work.
 
Depends on what the shareholders push to achieve.

Tussauds had shareholders throughout it's life I believe, it was only when Charterhouse came in that you started to see bigger demands - even more so when DIC got their grubby mits on the parks.

Blackstone and current investors (including lego group) seem more relaxed and understanding about the parks finances, you don't see them squeezed to the same extent they were in 05-07. Maybe because Blackstone also owns SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, and lego need their parks to look good and do well to showcase their product, whereas DIC was literally in it to fatten it up and exit.
 
Well it's not likely to be an increase in customer service and less fast track etc is it?

Think I might leave this debate alone now.

Investment revenue is great for expanding a business, but when you already have capital investors there is only one reason to float.

Let's take a football club as a simple example. Those who buy the clubs outright, like good old Randy Lerner of my beloved Aston Villa, took the club off the Stock Market. Why? Because he didn't need the money, and it bleeds a club of revenue.

On the other hand, let's take a quick peek at the giant Man U. They're servicing a lot of debt, with owners having to flog a ton of their assets, and went off to float the club to raise revenue.

If you have the capital, you don't need to float the company to grow. If you float the company, you're always at the behest of expectant shareholders and dividend yields, and if someone makes a royal cock up of it, or the market crashes, all of a sudden your company is worth a shed load less for no logical reason.

The stock market is a big game, full of gamblers, and it's very exciting, and I'd never put my own money in it, because for every winner there are a heck of a lot of losers.
 
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