Merlin Sells Top UK Tourist Attractions For £622m

Merlin Entertainments has sold the property assets of some of Britain's most famous tourist attractions, including Alton Towers and London waxworks Madame Tussauds, to Prestbury for £622 million and will rent them back under a 35-year lease.

Merlin said it would use most of the money raised to pay down the debt incurred during the £1 billion purchase of the Tussauds group earlier this year, though £270m will be invested in renewal and refurbishment programmes at many of its sites.

Merlin has expanded rapidly in recent years and is now the world's second biggest operator of visitor attractions behind Disney,with 13,000 staff in 12 countries.

In the UK it also operates the London Eye wheel on the Thames and Chessington World of Adventures.

The deal is the latest in a series of major acquisitions made by Prestbury over the past year. It has bought more than 220 pubs from Punch Taverns for £220m, paid £500m for Travelodge hotels and signed a £140m sale and leaseback deal with Royal Bank of Scotland for its London headquarters.