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 Merlin's chief executive - speaking after the group reported
summer trading in line with its expectations - said customer
reviews of its San Francisco Dungeon, the first outside Europe,
had encouraged him to roll out the brand to other U.S. cities.
Merlin reported like-for-like revenue growth of 6.7 percent for
the 36 weeks to Sept. 6 and forecast a year of growth, sending
shares in the Madam Tussauds and Legoland operator up as much
2.3 percent on Thursday.
"The question mark in our minds with the Dungeon brand...was how
well would a brand steeped in medieval horrible history
translate to the relatively younger history of the U.S," Chief
Executive Nick Varney told Reuters.
"Reassuringly we found that U.S. cities, albeit somewhat younger
in historical terms, have still got the same background of
torture, disease and gratuitous violence that most of their
European counterparts have," he said.
The world's No.2 operator of visitor attractions behind Walt
Disney has sought to diversify and build a balanced portfolio of
businesses across the globe. It currently makes over 60 percent
of sales in Britain and continental Europe but is aiming to
generate a third from Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific with
a raft of new sites.
The Dungeon brand currently has eight sites in Europe - London,
York, Warwick, Blackpool and Edinburgh in the UK, Berlin and
Hamburg in Germany and Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
[to top of second column] |
 Merlin's rise in underlying revenue compared with a stronger
8.1 percent reported for the first half. The firm had flagged a
second-half slowdown due to a tough comparison with last year,
when warm weather boosted visitor numbers.
Merlin said profit growth in the period, though, meant full-year
underlying profit margins similar to last year's levels.
Prior to the update, analysts were on average forecasting full-year
core earnings of 400 million pounds ($652.2 million), according to
Reuters data.
In July, the firm said it was in advanced talks to open more
Legoland Parks in China and the United States. Merlin is already due
to open parks in Dubai and Japan in 2016 and 2017 respectively,
taking it to seven globally, and has said it sees scope for 20 in
total.
Shares in the group, whose attractions also include Sea Life, Alton
Towers and the London Eye, were up 5.8 pence at 347 pence at 0912
GMT, valuing the business at 3.45 billion pounds. The stock had
listed at 315 pence.
(1 US dollar = 0.6133 British pound)
(Reporting by James Davey, editing by Pravin Char and Clara Ferreira
Marques)
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