Merlin Entertainments PLC (LON:MERL), the operator of Legoland Parks, Alton Towers and Madame Tussauds, has agreed to a £4.8bn takeover offer from a consortium backed by the founding family of the Lego Group.
Kirkbi AG, the investment vehicle of Lego’s founding Kirk Kristiansen family, and private equity giant Blackstone, together with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board as a co-investor, offered 455p in cash per Merlin share.
READ: Merlin Entertainments urged to go private by activist investor ValueAct
At that price the deal represents a 15% premium to the closing price a day earlier and is 31% higher than the average price over the past six months.
Kirkbi has owned a 29.6% stake in Merlin since selling the rights to the Legoland resorts in 2005, with its chief executive Søren Thorup Sørensen sitting on the board as a non-executive director.
The consortium has also received irrevocable commitments to vote in favour of the deal from shareholders representing 14.2% of Merlin shares.
Recommended deal
Merlin chairman John Sunderland said: "Following an unsolicited approach by a consortium of investors, and after rejecting a number of their proposals, the Merlin independent directors believe this offer represents an opportunity for Merlin shareholders to realise value for their investment in cash at an attractive valuation. We are therefore unanimously recommending it to our shareholders."
The shares have barely scraped above 400p since a profit warning in the autumn of 2017 on the back of London terror attacks.
US activist investor ValueAct bought a large stake in Merlin at that point and has been pushing for change ever since, with a call in May this year for the theme park operator to go private, arguing it was investing too much capital in long term projects that won’t generate decent returns for years. Merlin shares are up 37% since that call.