kirk kristiansen: The consortium taking over the company is 50% owned by Kirkbi, the private investment company of the family of Kirk Kristiansen, the inheritor of the Lego fortune who is said by Bloomberg to be worth 5.7bn 4.5bn . The other half is owned by private equity buyer Blackstone and CPPIB, the Canadian pension fund, according to The Guardian. The bid values Merlin's shares at 4.8bn, plus a further 1.1bn in debt. Merlin, which also counts Staffordshire theme park Alton Towers, waxworks Madame Tussauds and the London Eye among its attractions, had come under pressure from an activist investor to find a private buyer after struggling in recent months. The 455p per share terms represent a 15% premium to the closing price of 395p on Thursday evening, although it is a 37% premium to the price before US investor Value Act wrote a public letter urging the Merlin board to find a buyer. Merlin shares rose nearly 14% on Friday after the takeover deal was announced, to 450p. However, the offer price remains significantly lower than the company's value two years ago, when shares traded as high as 537p.
(news.financializer.com). As
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