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Drayton Manor Park

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned but the Looping Group, current owners of Drayton Manor are currently being acquired by PAI Partners. They currently own brands like Tropicana and holdings in Froneri (Ice Cream makers of Fab and Häagen-Dazs)

PAI Partners in final negotiations to acquire The Looping Group - PAI Partners

The Looping Group is a leading pan-European leisure park operator. Headquartered in Paris, Looping owns and operates 18 […]
www.paipartners.com www.paipartners.com

Headquartered in Paris, Looping owns and operates 18 high-quality, local and regional leisure parks, including theme parks, waterparks, wildlife parks and aquariums, attracting over six million visitors a year. The group’s parks span eight European countries, including France, the UK, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Croatia, Germany and Portugal.

Under Mubadala Capital’s ownership, Looping has benefitted from significant growth investments to enhance its existing portfolio of properties and expand through highly accretive M&A, all while building its value proposition to customers by providing high value and affordable experiences to families in a friendly and safe environment across Europe.

PAI would partner with Looping’s existing management team to drive further organic growth and add to the group’s portfolio of leisure parks. Here, PAI would draw on its expertise in the outdoor leisure industry, which includes past investments in B&B Hotels, Roompot and European Camping Group, to further strengthen Looping’s position as the leading operator in its segment in Europe.
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It's is going to Alton Towers 2005 all over again. Usually never a good thing when a private equity firm owns a theme park.

Although to become Alton Towers 2005 all over again, you've actually got to be flying high to begin with, not building your way up. Time will tell I guess, but I have never seen a single case in history of this being beneficial to the long term success of a theme park.
 
Double post, but digging into this a bit more, it does appear that the deal has gone ahead. Time will tell I guess. I suppose it depends on how ruthless the equity firm are. It is in their interest to keep the place making a decent profit after all.

I can see this either going really, really well, huge investments into the park, or really, really bad, with lots cost cutting and money grabbing at every corner.

Both will net returns on investment, but one is more long term and sustainable, the other is not. It all depends on what PAI's strategy is, do they want short term profit? In which case, they will squeeze the lemon hard and dry, very fast. Rubbish, badly thought out additions just to boost the park value, with the intention of selling for a profit ASAP. Or are they in this for the long run? Where they will make quality, well thought out investments that are sustainable for the long run. This is totally unclear at this point, there is no indication of either.
 
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As much as it pains me to say without fully knowing, or even anyone for that matter I do think it will be a “get rich quick” kinda game.

Like you’ve said squeezing as much money out of everything as much as possible with little to no investment as soon as we’ve had this Coaster. I’d love to be proven wrong but it’s what I can see happening unfortunately.
 
DistortAMG said:
It's is going to Alton Towers 2005 all over again. Usually never a good thing when a private equity firm owns a theme park.

Although to become Alton Towers 2005 all over again, you've actually got to be flying high to begin with, not building your way up. Time will tell I guess, but I have never seen a single case in history of this being beneficial to the long term success of a theme park.
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The group is already owned by a private equity group though, isn't it? It's just changing from one PE to another, and I think the general consensus is the current one has been good for both Drayton and the group as a whole.
 
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DistortAMG said:
It's is going to Alton Towers 2005 all over again. Usually never a good thing when a private equity firm owns a theme park.

Although to become Alton Towers 2005 all over again, you've actually got to be flying high to begin with, not building your way up. Time will tell I guess, but I have never seen a single case in history of this being beneficial to the long term success of a theme park.
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I’d argue the exact opposite. The Merlin floatation was a disaster for the parks. Things have only really started improving now it’s back in private hands. Private equity doesn’t always = bad. They are usually always looking for a profitable exit strategy. This will mean either asset stripping to make the business exceptionally lean (very unlikely and in this instance counter intuitive), debt loading from other assets (possible, but again unlikely), but instead I’d suggest this is a building of their leisure assets in to an enviable, profitable business and then selling the new enviable consolidated business (which by then should be a major competitor to the bigger groups) on for more money, possibly to a Merlin or similar.
 
That should mean more funding for bigger stuff then. As long as Looping Group management can pitch attractions that provide value to their investors and the general public, then they'll have the confidence to get behind whatever they plan to do. There's a greater appetite for quality attractions across the world, I see no reason why Drayton Manor/Looping Group would go back on themselves by doing very little.
 
Nosferatu said:
That should mean more funding for bigger stuff then. As long as Looping Group management can pitch attractions that provide value to their investors and the general public, then they'll have the confidence to get behind whatever they plan to do. There's a greater appetite for quality attractions across the world, I see no reason why Drayton Manor/Looping Group would go back on themselves by doing very little.
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They know not investing every year and improving the park doesn’t increase visitors and profits.
The looping group will still be operating the same but instead of Mubadala Capital and Bpifrance investing in the looping group it’s just PAI Partners.
 
benpicko said:
Given how often Drayton have worked with Zamperla in recent years, what are the chances we see something like this as the next thrill coaster? Especially with a design to integrate the flat rides into the layout, as in the video.

From: https://youtu.be/n2RJGquo3Ys
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I do not think we are going to see another all out thrill coaster from the park. They made a very strong point of making it clear they were building attractions that the whole park could ride together. Which pretty much rules out thrill coasters. Never say never but it's unlikely I would say.
 
Ah, damn — I didn't realise they'd ruled out new thrill rides, but fair enough. I would have thought they'd try to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, and considering they do have a few thrill rides remaining in the park perhaps they'd expand on that to bring in the thrill audience.
 
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