It seems Legoland is Merlin Entertainment's (MERL) crowning glory right now. Sales at these parks were up by a fifth at constant currency to £267m, while operating profit increased 13.2 per cent to £67m. Legoland Japan opened in April as part of the group’s target of opening four new parks by 2020, and the group is now exploring opening a location in New York and expansion in China.
The lack of a 53rd week this year, and thus fewer peak trading days, caused like-for-like sales for midway attractions to fall by 0.4 per cent to £300m. Weaker sterling encouraged more foreign tourists to visit Merlin’s UK sites, but management said a series of terror attacks “immediately and significantly” hurt domestic demand, so is cautious how this will affect international visits over the summer.
Rooms opened last year contributed to the 6.2 per cent comparable revenue growth at the resort theme parks. These attractions did well at the start of the period thanks to the timing of Easter, but terror attacks made would-be visitors nervous towards the end of the period. Management added that it is confident that Alton Towers will make a full recovery once customers come back to the site.
Analysts at Stifel expect pre-tax profit of £280m in the year to December 2017, giving EPS of 20.4p, compared with £259m and 19.5p in 2016.
| MERLIN ENTERTAINMENT (MERL) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 470.2p | MARKET VALUE: | £ 4.78bn | |
| TOUCH: | 470.1-470.4p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 538p | LOW: 423p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 1.2% | PE RATIO: | 30 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 140p* | NET DEBT: | 87% | |
| Half-year to 1 Jul | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2016** | 573 | 50 | 3.6 | 2.20 |
| 2017 | 685 | 50 | 3.7 | 2.40 |
| % change | +20 | - | +3 | +9 |
| Ex-div: | 17 Aug | |||
| Payment: | 25 Sep | |||
| *Includes intangible assets of £1bn, or 101p a share **Six-month period ended 26 Jun 2016 | ||||
