Blackstone, the private equity firm, has paid £1.03bn in cash to buy The Tussauds Group, which owns leisure assets including Madame Tussauds and the London Eye, from Dubai International Capital. The acquisition takes Merlin Entertainments, Blackstone’s leisure parks business, to second place in the international leisure parks industry in terms of visitor numbers after Disney. The deal brings together Blackstone’s leisure assets including the London Dungeon and Legoland theme parks with Tussauds’ waxworks, Alton Towers and Chessington World of Adventures and creates a group with ebitda of almost £200m.
