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Merlin Leadership: Time for a change?

Can the decline not be tracked to the move out of private ownership? I know it’s not that simple, but Varney has been CEO across both periods.

To draw a comparison, the radical changes at Universal were primarily a result of the change in ownership structure, not CEO. So I don’t think the CEO is the primary problem. If I were to choose a new CEO though, it would be one who drove the ownership agenda. Or Amanda Thompson.
 
For me anything other than Merlin relinquishing control to another operator would be akin to re-arranging the deckchairs on the titanic.

Nick Varney comes across as being a decent sort of person and as mentioned earlier stood up very well to some very debatable journalism in the aftermath of The Smiler. But I think it's Merlin as a whole thats strangling the life out of Alton Towers.

Wickerman has really taken a lot of people by surprise, myself included as I thought it would be nothing more than a decent family ride. What is a crying shame is that after creating something very special and giving Towers it's best rollercoaster lineup for many years, Merlin have cut the purse strings which has created a quite shambolic 2018 thus far :(
 
I'm sure Varney is doing his best with what he's given. It's not him at fault for the present ride issues, he's been there for years when it was good.
 
MattyH said:
I think we should let @Matt N run the place..
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If I led Merlin, my first order of business at Alton would be to extend the opening hours, reopen the closed rides and F&B outlets and put in some flat rides.

SW9 would either see Rita get sacrificed to The Beornen so that a Mack or Intamin multi-launch coaster could be built where it currently sits or it would see Alton send a blank cheque to B&M to get a massive hyper built in the valley. I can dream...

Sound good to you?
 
Austin Towers said:
I'm quite confident that Nick Varney would love to run the park differently.
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No doubt

But in his position he needs to please the shareholders or he will be out of a job

The business really doesn’t lend itself to being PLC - ultimately shreholders have a different agenda to the stakeholders of the business
 
JB1985 said:
The business really doesn’t lend itself to being PLC - ultimately shreholders have a different agenda to the stakeholders of the business
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The shareholders need to realise that Merlin cutting budgets to the point that customers won't return is not a good long-term strategy and it doesn't bode well for their investment. If the shareholders demanded Merlin improve the visitor experience then they would have to
 
As has already been mentioned, a change of CEO is of little relevance. NV isn't in the job of running great theme parks, but to deliver value for shareholders.
 
No. Unwise.

Plus, today's trading update:

Group trading at this seasonally quiet point of the year has been in line with expectations and consistent with the guidance provided on 1 March.

In Midway, visitation in our London Division remains down year on year reflecting the strong trading in the comparative period and continued impact from the 2017 terror attacks. We remain confident of a recovery over time.

While an earlier Easter period and poor weather affected a number of our parks, overall trading within the Theme Parks Operating Groups was in line with expectations. Our 2018 New Business Development programme is on track, with all 644 accommodation rooms and one of the nine planned new Midway attractions, now open.

As announced on 19 April we have successfully refinanced certain of our banking facilities, extending the size and maturity of our revolving credit facility, and repaying £377 million equivalent of Sterling and US Dollar-denominated term loans.

Merlin will report 2018 Interim results on 2 August.
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Broadly in line with expectations Pretty much as I expected, but I did wonder if the bad weather at the start of the UK season would be referenced.
 
A corporation can also use a combination of poor, absolute minimum services, and aggressive attempts to squeeze more money out of visitors post-admission (fast track and similar), to prepare the sale of a business entity and make it look more profitable. Of course, this high profitability is not sustainable, but a planned sale would be another explanation, than just a desperate attempt to please shareholders, at any possible future cost.
 
@PhantaDad2017, Merlin will not sell a park like Alton, especially on its own. Selling even just one of the UK RTPs, and especially the one that is considered the "flagship" Merlin RTP, would severely devalue Merlin's main product – the Merlin Annual Pass.

It's strange, but Merlin genuinely seem to believe that what they are doing is sustainable.. and in honesty, it's been proven now that some people will pay for almost anything, which is just shown in the amount of Fastrack sales, even if that is encouraged further by the unbearably long queues, short operating hours, and poor operations. At the end of the day, if a visitor isn't happy, then it is very possible that they will just not visit the attraction again. That is where Merlin will fail. Because they are in denial that guest experience is continuously effected negatively by the decisions they make to cut costs.

:(
 
@Robert.W Probably right, I checked the shareholder structure, and it seems like there are not the big locust investors, who just strip and loot businesses (except if multiple smaller investors cooperate in this). Almost 30% is Kirkbi A/S (Lego), the rest is rather broadly distributed. Business numbers only show that theme parks and UK market are rather weak, which might explain desperate attempts to avoid losses or shrinking numbers.

Or they have seen that this works in other parks, in Europe particularly Port Aventura, and attempt to imitate this bad role model. But PA doesn't reduce operations to as low as 5 hours on busy days. They probably hope a lot of people will look at the best thrill rides only, and suffer everything for them, both in experience and financially.

I like to compare it to video games and post-purchase payments/"microtransactions": Since the beginning of consoles and home computers in the 1980s, video games had been mostly "pay once and for all". In-game payments worked well for "free" browser and mobile games, but then a few AAA games had successful modes with microtransactions. It crept into premium titles for a while, until Star Wars Battlefront 2 was about to become a fully paid premium game, designed mostly to force more payments in the game. Games with microtransactions, beyond "cosmetics", are garbage, not designed for fun, but boring and tedious, in order to offer relief through in-game payments. Last year's battle of Battlefront 2 pushed this whole garbage back, because gamers fought back and voted with their wallets. This backlash has not yet come for theme parks.
 
I don't understand where people have got the impression that Varney is 'a genuinly nice guy' or that he started in a lowly position at Alton Towers and worked his way up. He was marketing director, one of the most senior positions at any park, then became group marketing director for Tussauds (the largest attraction operator in Europe).

He did very good things, like completely remarket Alton Towers in the 1990s, but he is the reason that Merlin's marketing policies are so robotic, and actually limit development and innovation. He is the reason the company went after global domination, focussing on opening copy-pasted 'brands' rather than maintaining their existing parks* and buying out any competition using private equity money.

He now has a company that is far too big for its bottom line. I don't think by this point a different CEO would change anything though. You'd just have a crowd of corporate egotists with no interest in theme parks fighting to fill his place.

*bar Alton Towers, which, for all Merlin's treatment of it they still do invest with more consideration than their other parks, especially Wicker Man
 
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