After being fined £5m for a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act following last year's Smiler rollercoaster crash, theme park operator Merlin Entertainments (MERL) could only manage a middling trading update.
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Its Midway Attractions business, which includes Madame Tussauds and its Dungeons locations, saw like-for-like sales fall, although the performance of its resorts and Legoland divisions meant group-wide like-for-like sales rose 1.3 per cent. This rate of growth is less than half the 2.8 per cent level achieved in the first half of 2015, though. Chief executive Nick Varney said the resorts business was expected to build on the recovery alread made since the Alton Towers incident.
