iNVEZZ.com, Tuesday, December 10: Merlin Entertainments (LON:MERL), the owner of Madame Tussauds, the London Eye and Legoland, has announced plans to invest about SGD20 million (£9.7 million) to develop attractions in Singapore. This is in line with its strategy of expanding its presence in the fast growing Asian markets to support future growth and profitability. The UK-based leisure and entertainment company has entered into a partnership with Singapore’s state-owned Sentosa Development Corporation that oversees the development, management and promotion of the Sentosa Island resort to help upgrade Sentosa’s well-known Images of Singapore (IOS) attraction and build a new Madame Tussauds wax museum. Sentosa, a five square-kilometer resort island, hosts Southeast Asia’s only Universal Studios theme park and a casino. Visitor arrivals to the city-state rose 8.7 percent year-on-year to 11.7 million in the first nine months of this year, according to figures from the Singapore Tourism Board.
Singapore’s first Madame Tussauds museum, which is famous for its lifelike wax figures of world icons, will be opened in the second half of next year. Merlin currently operates five Madame Tussauds museums in Asia – in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Wuhan – and plans to open one in Beijing this summer. The company, which is the world’s second biggest visitor attraction operator after Disney, is betting on Asia for future growth, as a rising middle class in the region is boosting consumer spending on leisure activities and entertainment. Asia’s middle class is forecast to triple to 1.7 billion by 2020 and to grow further to three billion by 2030, which will be 10 times that of North America and five times more than Europe, according to estimates by US think-tank The Brookings Institution.
“Our most important development region is Asia, and we’re going very rapidly, with 10 attractions already open and seven more in development,” Meike Schulze, divisional director for Asia at Merlin Entertainments said at a press conference.
Last year, Merlin opened its first Asian Legoland theme park in Malaysia, which has already attracted more than one million visitors. It is in the process of developing a Legoland in Dubai and potentially in Japan and South Korea.
Merlin’s share price hit a fresh post-IPO high of 359.50p this morning. The stock eased to 352p by 13:35 UTC, down 0.28 percent from yesterday’s close, but 11.7 percent higher than last month’s IPO price of 315p.
As of 13:22 UTC buy Merlin shares at 352.00p.
As of 13:22 UTC sell Merlin shares at 351.75p.
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Merlin share price: Company invests £10m to enter Singapore
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