30th Jul 2015 07:36
LONDON (Alliance News) - Merlin Entertainments PLC Thursday said the first half of 2015 was over-shadowed by the serious accident at Alton Towers as the company reported a small fall in profit despite revenue experiencing a small rise.
The theme park operator reported a pretax profit of GBP36 million in the first half of 2015, down from GBP40 million a year earlier despite revenue rising to GBP544 million from GBP513 million as visitors rose to 27.7 million from 27.5 million.
Earnings before finance income and costs, taxation, depreciation and amortisation came in at GBP123 million, which was up from GBP120 million.
Those exceptional items totalled GBP13 million in the first half, meaning pretax profit before those items was actually up to GBP49 million from GBP40 million as it did not book any exceptional items a year earlier.
Merlin increased its interim dividend by 5% to 2.1 pence per share.
The company said like-for-like revenue grew by 2.8% year-on-year which mitigated the impact of difficult trading at a number of its attractions. The most notable is the accident at Alton Towers involving the Smiler ride, which has continued to hit the resort theme park division which experienced a 2% drop in revenue in the first half.
"The first-half was overshadowed by the serious accident at Alton Towers. Safety is, and must always be, of paramount importance in our business," said Chief Executive Nick Varney.
LEGOLAND revenues were up 6% year-on-year, driven by ongoing strength in the two US parks and successful launches of new features and products.
The midway attractions group saw like for like revenue grow by 2.9% but its attractions in London have experienced a fall which was offset by growth in Asia and Europe, it said.
"The persistent weakness in the euro has, and is likely to continue to, impact volumes across our London attractions, which we believe is the result of the relative value of the Eurozone as a destination to both European and UK outbound visitors," said the company.
Its outlook for the year remains in line with expectations. Merlin said it expects Ebitda from its resort theme park division to be between GBP40 to GBP50 million for 2015, which would be considerably down from the GBP87 million made in 2014.
However, the company said the fall in Ebitda would be partially offset by lower financing costs, meaning underlying pretax profit for the full year will be around the same as it was in 2014 at GBP249 million.
"Although difficult to assess at this stage, we believe that there may be some continued adverse impact on the Resort Theme Parks Operating Group profitability in 2016," said the company in a statement.
Merlin shares were up 0.4% to 419.10 pence per share on Thursday morning.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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