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Gardaland

MaxPower said:
They are probably leveraged to the max and that is what is crippling them at the moment. Many companies that are currently in real trouble are those with excessive debt levels.

Merlin struggling on would ultimately be
worse for the parks than if it went bust and the assets sold off, so I'd rather see it dissolved and see a more competitive environment in the UK.

Here's hoping the Mack family would like a new project...
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Benzin said:
Merlin have been treading water for years, the Smiler crash exacerbated that.

No surprise that this would cause further problems.
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I apologise for keeping pestering you all, but I must ask; as someone who doesn’t know much about economics, what does it mean if they are “leveraged to the max”, and how have they been “treading water”, as I was under the impression that they tried to take on very low amounts of debt compared to other theme park companies?
 
Merlin have been treading the water far far to long. This could see the end of what we know and call merlin. It will take years to get out of this mess merlin is a midway and legoland company with a few theme parks dragging them along. The longer this goes on the more I think we could see them sell the theme parks division sooner and focus solely on the midways and legoland.
 
Matt N said:
I apologise for keeping pestering you all, but I must ask; as someone who doesn’t know much about economics, what does it mean if they are “leveraged to the max”, and how have they been “treading water”, as I was under the impression that they tried to take on very low amounts of debt compared to other theme park companies?
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I can't answer most of your questions as I'm not at all clued up on business sadly, but in terms of debt, their last reports suggested debts of around £4 billion. I know enough to be sure that that's not in any way a very low amount of debt...
 
Islander said:
I can't answer most of your questions as I'm not at all clued up on business sadly, but in terms of debt, their last reports suggested debts of around £4 billion. I know enough to be sure that that's not in any way a very low amount of debt...
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Ooh my, that's higher than I was expecting...
 
People are talking about Merlin like it's some cake stall at a church jumble sale.

These are unprecedented times, but Merlin is owned by organisations that collectively have in excess of £500bn of assets. They decided it was worth backing prior to Covid, it would seem odd to me that they would be quick to write it off so soon after - the corporate world doesn't tend to work like that.

The three way income split (NA, Europe & AP) will help them over time.

Will there be challenges? Sure. Are they insurmountable? I suspect not.

Islander said:
I can't answer most of your questions as I'm not at all clued up on business sadly, but in terms of debt, their last reports suggested debts of around £4 billion. I know enough to be sure that that's not in any way a very low amount of debt...
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~$3bn of that is due to going private. That said, it's very structured and won't cause problems for a while, for that reason.
 
Rick said:
People are talking about Merlin like it's some cake stall at a church jumble sale.

These are unprecedented times, but Merlin is owned by organisations that collectively have in excess of £500bn of assets. They decided it was worth backing prior to Covid, it would seem odd to me that they would be quick to write it off so soon after - the corporate world doesn't tend to work like that.

The three way income split (NA, Europe & AP) will help them over time.

Will there be challenges? Sure. Are they insurmountable? I suspect not.


~$3bn of that is due to going private. That said, it's very structured and won't cause problems for a while, for that reason.
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we won’t know exactly how much they lost till next year. Obviously it’s going to be pretty high but until then we will just have to keep guessing about what the outcome is.
 
Rick said:
People are talking about Merlin like it's some cake stall at a church jumble sale.

These are unprecedented times, but Merlin is owned by organisations that collectively have in excess of £500bn of assets. They decided it was worth backing prior to Covid, it would seem odd to me that they would be quick to write it off so soon after - the corporate world doesn't tend to work like that.

The three way income split (NA, Europe & AP) will help them over time.

Will there be challenges? Sure. Are they insurmountable? I suspect not.


~$3bn of that is due to going private. That said, it's very structured and won't cause problems for a while, for that reason.
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It’s operated like a cake sale at a jumble sale but anyway...

I think it’s unlikely Merlin will “fail” in its entirety. They do however operate in very short term ways in past experience so I would expect deeper cuts than most other operators, unless going private changes anything around the companies ethos.
 
The "six flags race to the bottom" hasnt been mentioned yet!
Silly cheap season passes to get a massive secondary sale.
Fine until the punters cant get through the door.
Massive debt may have been planned and structured, but covid wasnt part of that plan.
Huge losses of income for at least a year.
The backers may just stand back and cut their losses.
Strange times, time will tell.
 
rob666 said:
The "six flags race to the bottom" hasnt been mentioned yet!
Silly cheap season passes to get a massive secondary sale.
Fine until the punters cant get through the door.
Massive debt may have been planned and structured, but covid wasnt part of that plan.
Huge losses of income for at least a year.
The backers may just stand back and cut their losses.
Strange times, time will tell.
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they stand to lose a minimum of around £700/800 million (at a guess). Any business that loses that much in a year is bound for trouble. I think when people take a step back and really think how much money they are actually losing everyday it’s staggering.
 
It would appear that something is happening with Shaman, the park’s Vekoma looping coaster, as track has been removed:

The park’s PR department has said it is “general maintenance”.

What could be happening here? I think we could be seeing something similar to what happened to Python at Efteling, where CSM came in and completely retracked the ride and smoothed out some of the transitions.
 
Burbs said:
Well that might explain why it wasn't open last December. Had it been running at all through the year when the park was able to open?
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I’m not actually sure when it last operated, to be honest. I can presume it operated during 2020, as it seems to have come as a surprise.
AT86 said:
Uh-oh. We all know what that is Merlin code for.
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To be fair, work is actually being conducted on the ride this time, so I have reason to believe that this is what is happening, personally.
 
Matt N said:
To be fair, work is actually being conducted on the ride this time, so I have reason to believe that this is what is happening, personally.
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To be fair, the only work we've seen so far being conducted is track being removed and scrapped.


Without any kind of teaser campaign for its return with a new "brand", ala Colossos at Heide Park, I struggle to see Merlin spending millions on just retracking an old Vekoma looper. It would be quite the surprise.
 
Gives me some kind of perverse kick watching that track being chewed up and spat out though.
Did it do it for you?
 
Burbs said:
Well that might explain why it wasn't open last December. Had it been running at all through the year when the park was able to open?
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Yes it reopened this season. It's almost certain the planned refurbishment that was supposed to be happening last closed season is happening now. This is what the park have actually said about it (with Google Translate).
"Shaman will be subjected to a technical intervention necessary to revitalize the experience of the attraction: the track will in fact be more fluid and less noisy."
 
Is their Sequoia Magic Loop rollercoaster still open? I’ve heard it’s awful but I’d like to ride it ast some point and it doesn’t seem to be on their website? Didn’t it only get refurbished last year?
 
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