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The Sinking Ship: (Un)Love Letters to Merlin

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Is it just me that doesn't care about the business performance of Merlin? I just want Alton Towers to be as good as it can be. The rest of Varney's empire is largely irrelevant to me yet it seems at times you need a business studies A level to follow the conversation on some threads with all the investor jargon.
 
The slide that grabs my eye from the presentation is the one about Peppa Pig. Apparently they're doing initial 'pilots' (presumably Garda Land and Heide Park) and then they want to open five Peppa Pig attractions a year. These will include:
Peppa Play (£3 million - £5 million indoor play centres)
Mid Scale Parks
Lands in larger parks

Perhaps the Peppa Play will be like the Mattel Play Heritage GB opened in Liverpool. Does mid scale parks mean a whole park themed to Peppa Pig? Like Anheuser Busch's Sesame Place? And lands in larger park covers Heide Park and Gardaland. Not sure which other parks they could create an area in, unless they did a Peppa Pig area at the Legolands. Or if they did buy Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
 
When I read the bumph about Peppa Pig my initial thoughts were those play centres like Funky Monkeys.

What do people think about the profits of the Resort parks? £36 million over 6 parks. 21% profit margin.
 
It's because they see Paulton's as a legitimate threat. Rather than asking what Paulton's is doing right they've just jumped on the Peppa Pig bandwagon.

Funcone said:
unless they did a Peppa Pig area at the Legolands.
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No! If Merlin started adding non-Lego IPs to Legoland they really have lost the plot.
 
Tim said:
It's because they see Paulton's as a legitimate threat. Rather than asking what Paulton's is doing right they've just jumped on the Peppa Pig bandwagon.


No! If Merlin started adding non-Lego IPs to Legoland they really have lost the plot.
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Besides it will be in the contract merlin have with the lego group that they can't do non Lego IP in Lego branded parks.

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PeteB said:
Sounds like horse sh!t. That's the "on paper" profits. They'll be making a hell of a lot more than that in reality.
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Why would they not publish if they were making more money? The additional tax would surely be outweighed by the increase in the share price which is the primary function of PLCs.
 
John said:
Is it just me that doesn't care about the business performance of Merlin? I just want Alton Towers to be as good as it can be. The rest of Varney's empire is largely irrelevant to me yet it seems at times you need a business studies A level to follow the conversation on some threads with all the investor jargon.
Click to expand...
Maybe it's time for someone to start a "Merlin: through the eyes of a calculator" thread, so this topic can get back to good old moaning?
 
The most important line in that statement for investors? Dividend 7.4p and if I am reading it correctly on page 14, that equates to £74million which has gone to Shareholders in dividends this year.

For a company to have made £209m profit and still have cuts across all the estate, sums Merlin up perfectly for me.

But then again look at how much money they waste. Rent up to over £100 million, wonder how much of that goes to Prestbury and how much it would have been if they hadnt raised that capital by selling the land. Debt up again and marketing now £85million :)

I so love Merlin :)
 
Funcone said:
The slide that grabs my eye from the presentation is the one about Peppa Pig. Apparently they're doing initial 'pilots' (presumably Garda Land and Heide Park) and then they want to open five Peppa Pig attractions a year. These will include:
Peppa Play (£3 million - £5 million indoor play centres)
Mid Scale Parks
Lands in larger parks

Perhaps the Peppa Play will be like the Mattel Play Heritage GB opened in Liverpool. Does mid scale parks mean a whole park themed to Peppa Pig? Like Anheuser Busch's Sesame Place? And lands in larger park covers Heide Park and Gardaland. Not sure which other parks they could create an area in, unless they did a Peppa Pig area at the Legolands. Or if they did buy Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
Click to expand...

Merlin cannot use Peppa Pig in the UK at all, Paulton's own that license.

The only way for Merlin to obtain that IP, is to obtain Paulton's, which I bet they'd dearly love, but Paulton's tell them to take a hike weekly, by most accounts.
 
The key figure of any relevance here is the 8% decline in operating profits for Resort Theme Parks. Evidently this is behind the budget cuts.
The debt is neither here, nor there. It’s being serviced perfectly fine.


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