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Major Operational Changes for 2018

The recent fall in Merlin's share price is nothing to do with the U turn at Alton Towers.

As much as it may sound disappointing, the vast majority of comments on their Facebook and Twitter feeds have been from the hardcore enthusiast community.

Thankfully, said community do have some impact!
 
Benjsh said:
I get the impression that they wish they didn't own it. They make more profit from parks less than half the size I bet. AT is such a great location and setting for a park, however I can imagine it's not very cost effective to run with it being so vast.

Who could you see you possibly coming in and taking it off their hands though? I'm struggling to suggest anyone in the industry so that only leaves private investment.
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Actually Towers has always been a fair profit engine, rumour is that Chessington is also. Thorpe and Garda are where the rumour mill say things go less well.

The issue is the Smiler incident threw the numbers and when Towers doesn’t pull in the guests the place requires a huge amount of money just to keep moving. Merlin don’t seem to want to play the long game with the park.

It’s a stupid decision not to support the park, but there seems to be a general global business model to move to short term gain, look at Carillion
 
Dave said:
Actually Towers has always been a fair profit engine, rumour is that Chessington is also. Thorpe and Garda are where the rumour mill say things go less well.

The issue is the Smiler incident threw the numbers and when Towers doesn’t pull in the guests the place requires a huge amount of money just to keep moving. Merlin don’t seem to want to play the long game with the park.

It’s a stupid decision not to support the park, but there seems to be a general global business model to move to short term gain, look at Carillion
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I heard a rumour that for years AT had been picking up the slack for the southern parks. Is this the case?
 
WickerManiac said:
I heard a rumour that for years AT had been picking up the slack for the southern parks. Is this the case?
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If you want rumour (and it is I don’t know facts) then Chessington and Towers held their own but Thorpe has always been a bit of a drain on money.

Take that as you want.
 
Funcone said:
Since they announced the reduced opening times it looks like Merlin's share price has fallen by 30p, which has wiped around 8% off the share price. It's possible that they always planned to reverse some of the cuts, but I recon this U turn could be unplanned. Some disgruntled enthusiasts on a forum probably doesn't have much impact, but when 8% disappears off your company value in the space of a few days, it's a bit disappointing.

https://www.merlinentertainments.biz/share-price-information

The whole British theme park industry's in a bad way. I was hoping that with Icon, SW8, Paulton's expansion and various other developments, the UK industry could make a real come back. It saddens me to say that I don't see this happening now.
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Certainly looks like the news have had some influence over the prices. Take a look at what happened when the news of the partial reversal happened today, the share prices briefly went up, then they went down again when people realise it wasn't such a great deal ;):p
 
Merlin as a whole group are doing pretty well though. They had an operating Profit of £320m in the most recent figures released. Now that's spread across a large number of attractions world wide of course but that's still a healthy figure on the face of it. Their LFL growth is steady too.

They definitely seem to have a very large focus on the Legoland side of things as well as the midways. Their big strategy from 2016 till 2020 was to acquire up to 40 new midways.
 
Benjsh said:
Merlin as a whole group are doing pretty well though. They had an operating Profit of £320m in the most recent figures released. Now that's spread across a large number of attractions world wide of course but that's still a healthy figure on the face of it. Their LFL growth is steady too.

They definitely seem to have a very large focus on the Legoland side of things as well as the midways. Their big strategy from 2016 till 2020 was to acquire up to 40 new midways.
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But their share price falls....

Capitalism is legitimised gambling, I make no comment on the morals of that but a gambler doesn’t look at what is in their pocket, they look at the odds that may add more to their pocket. This is the person Nick Varney is selling to and those people don’t like risk. Long term strategy is always full of risk!
 
RoyJess said:
Certainly looks like the news have had some influence over the prices. Take a look at what happened when the news of the partial reversal happened today, the share prices briefly went up, then they went down again when people realise it wasn't such a great deal ;):p
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Alton Towers is one out of hundreds of Merlin properties, the staggered ride openings have had no impact on the share price.
 
Crawleyboy01 said:
Still don' like it even in this "improved" form they couldn't careless about people who have supported them and there attractions they just want there money. These changes along with the other changes set to be introduced ( standard passes ) and the extra money for pmap means I will no longer be spending my money with them. I will not renew, i will not buy anything while at our local attractions and I will put that money on a trip to DLP and Europa. And when I say I won' spend a penny I won' even use there map refill drinks. To little to late. I mean lets behonest what they've changed it to still screws MAP holders...only now instead of going dry and hard there spitting on it first. It leaves WAY to much open and up for discussion. And I would like to know before have that if I make a 5 hour trip with the family what time the park will close! 6? 5? 2??? It' all bs
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Five hours from Crawley? (I'm assuming the clue is in the name), took us three last time leaving at 6am from Reigate to beat Heathrow traffic, drove into Towers at 9.00 on the dot and did ERT for the first time ever, never got to do it while staying on site. That Heathrow traffic is a trip killer for us, I'd rather drive throug the night or get up at 5am than sit in that from 8am onwards.

Dave said:
But their share price falls....

Capitalism is legitimised gambling, I make no comment on the morals of that but a gambler doesn’t look at what is in their pocket, they look at the odds that may add more to their pocket. This is the person Nick Varney is selling to and those people don’t like risk. Long term strategy is always full of risk!
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Plus if the performance of the company doesn't meet "market expectations" the market have the power to kill your company overnight because over paid self obsessed junkies think you should have made more money than you did, it's the most screwed up system ever but hey capitalism blah blah.
 
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IanSR said:
Five hours from Crawley? (I'm assuming the clue is in the name), took us three last time leaving at 6am from Reigate to beat Heathrow traffic, drove into Towers at 9.00 on the dot and did ERT for the first time ever, never got to do it while staying on site. That Heathrow traffic is a trip killer for us, I'd rather drive throug the night or get up at 5am than sit in that from 8am onwards.
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3 children under 5 2 of them can't seem to hold there bladders longer then 25 mins lol turns it into a 5 hour drive
 
Dave said:
But their share price falls....

Capitalism is legitimised gambling, I make no comment on the morals of that but a gambler doesn’t look at what is in their pocket, they look at the odds that may add more to their pocket. This is the person Nick Varney is selling to and those people don’t like risk. Long term strategy is always full of risk!
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Nick Varney is selling shares to people like me in fact. You should always be worried when I buy your shares.

Why?

Because they're dirt cheap and I know his CFO will be looking down the back of the sofa at the end of the year for every last penny. This will happen regardless of the impact this has on the long term prosperity of the business to ensure those shares don't stay cheap for long.

They'll probably accompany this in April with some clever marketing nonsense and a glossy colour presentation full of words like "synergy" and Clip Art pictures of ships in a storm, the FT and various investor websites will fall for it and write some nice articles and the share price rises.

Short term punters make a quick buck, Merlin gets some new investment, and the board go home and discuss with their partners whether or not to keep the charade going for another year, or time to to cut and run and retire.
 
Benjsh said:
I get the impression that they wish they didn't own it. They make more profit from parks less than half the size I bet. AT is such a great location and setting for a park, however I can imagine it's not very cost effective to run with it being so vast.

Who could you see you possibly coming in and taking it off their hands though? I'm struggling to suggest anyone in the industry so that only leaves private investment.
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Nail on head
 
The most interesting thing about the Congo River Rapids backlash is that seasonal operation of that type of ride is common in more favourable climates.

All down to culture.
 
Culture and choice I think. Other parks tend to have more water rides or more variety of family rides. Closing a family ride throughout Easter was always going to an unpopular decision.
 
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It appear Towers have once again updated their website to show that the Theme Park will open to all other guests at 10am. However there is no mention of the 11am ride openings? could this mean we are seeing all attractions up and running from 10am?
 
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