Mega-Deal: Lego Family to Take Over Merlin Entertainments

A consortium consisting of the Danish Lego owner family Kristiansen and two other investors (the private equity firm Blackstone and the Canadian CPPIB pension fund) has submitted an acquisition offer for the British operating group Merlin Entertainments (Merlin). This was announced last Friday by Kirkbi, the main shareholder company controlled by the descendants of the Lego inventor. The offer amounts to 4.77 billion British Pounds (around 5.3 billion Euro) with an enterprise value of 5.9 billion British Pounds (around 6.6 billion Euro) – the Merlin Directors consider the terms of the acquisition to be fair and reasonable and shareholders were therefore recommended to approve the purchase.

This means that not only eight Legoland parks, which now exist all over the world, would go to the Lego founder’s family, but a total of 130 leisure attractions worldwide, including Heide Park Soltau (Germany), Alton Towers Resort (UK), the Madame Tussauds wax figure attractions and many other theme parks and leisure centers. Last year, the group’s leisure attractions recorded a total of around 67 million guests. In the future, Kirkbi will own 50 percent of the shares of Merlin, while the remaining 50 percent will be with Blackstone and CPPIB. Blackstone and Kirkbi already jointly held shares in Merlin between 2005 and 2013, before the company went public in 2013.

The acquisition transaction is expected to be complete by the end of 2019. Kirkbi CEO Søren Thorup Sørensen explained that the investor group has the collective resources necessary to equip Merlin for their next phase of growth. (eap)