Alton Towers crash wipes £100m from owner’s value

THE owner of the Alton Towers theme park has seen almost £100m wiped from its value by this week’s crash and is set to lose millions in lost bookings.

Merlin Entertainments, which also owns Legoland, Madame Tussauds and Sea Life centres, saw its shares slide on Tuesday following the accident on the Smiler rollercoaster that left five people hospitalised.

The company’s market value fell by £160m that afternoon but it has since recovered some of the losses. Yesterday shares closed 6.6p higher at 450.9p, compared to 460p that they opened at on Tuesday.

Merlin has been forced to close the Staffordshire park – its flagship attraction – for several days, which will cost it millions in lost fees.

Alton Towers is open between March and November, and takes in around £110m in revenues annually, analysts estimate.

This means it makes an average of £464,000 a day – though this will be higher during the summer months.

The two days that the park has closed so far will therefore have cost it close to £1m in lost fees.

But analysts have also warned that confidence in the firm could be damaged by the incident, leading to fewer people booking tickets this summer.

There are also worries that it could knock appetite for theme park visits, which is crucial for Merlin as attractions including Thorpe Park and Chessington World of Adventures make up a significant part of its business.

‘The timing of this couldn’t be worse,’ said an analyst at a major bank, who asked to remain anonymous.

‘The impact on the company depends entirely on how quickly it can sort things out.

‘Theme parks are 20pc of profits, and Alton Towers is about a third of that. So it won’t wipe out Alton Towers’ profitability but it is the worst possible timing for the booking season.

‘These things have a habit of impacting the numbers for a short time, but then people realise that they wouldn’t open [again] if they weren’t totally happy with the safety.’