Merlin Entertainments PLC (LON:MERL) shares rose in early deals on Thursday after strong sales growth in its resort theme Parks division in 2018 helped offset a decline at its LEGOLAND Parks.
The FTSE 250 firm reported like-for-like (LFL) revenue growth of 8.6% for its resort theme parks, which include Alton Towers and Thorpe Park, that was attributed to strong trading in its peak summer season as well as the Halloween period, adding that the segment had also received a boost from the “very favourable weather” in the UK and Europe.
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The strong performance helped offset a slowdown in the company’s LEGOLAND division, where revenues shrank 0.3% on an LFL basis after several years of strong growth, a drop that Merlin blamed on a lack of “new news” as well as no LEGO movies being released during the year.
For the company’s Midway attractions, which include the London Eye and Madame Tussauds, LFL revenue growth was relatively flat at 0.1%.
In the headline figures, pre-tax profit rose 4.9% in the year ended 29 December 2018 to £285mln, while revenues increased 3.7% to £1.6bn.
The company also increased its final dividend to 5.5p per share from 5p in 2017, taking the total dividend for the year to 8p from 7.4p.
Looking forward, Merlin said trading in the current “seasonally quiet” period was in line with expectations and that its 2019 outlook was unchanged.
Nick Varney, Merlin’s chief executive, added that the company was expecting to deliver up to £35mln in annualised savings by 2022 through “a number of initiatives”.
In a note to clients, analysts at broker Liberum said the results had come in “broadly in line with expectations”, although pre-tax profit had come in above consensus estimates of £273mln.
Shares were up 1.1% at 356.5p.