birdie100

A lowly retail assistant. But, I'm going off to uni next year to read economics. It's exciting to think that I'm a small part of all this business - at the front line, making the bottom line profit for the corporate bigwigs to buy and sell. I'm looking forward to my company training for the new season, with all the usual spiel about how amazing the legoland brand is, but knowing that really we're just a minnow compared to the might of private equity!

Well, as an employee, in real terms it makes no difference to me who owns Legoland. After all, Legoland Windsor I know trades as its own entity (as it pays me as legoland Windsor - always has - even from the days of Lego). So, who its current owner is isn't too much of a problem for us staff. It's going to be the cross branding that'll be the one to watch this summer - and that may have an impact on me, with free tickets I hope being offered to Thorpe park for employees!

Ah, I know that Legoland don't have a say over anything Blackstone wants. But, this is a unique position. If Balckstone want to be Disney beaters, they've got two different ways to play it. Either, they push hard for integration between all the brands. The original merlin was going to buy out legoland as far as I was able to make out - but Blackstone bought Merlin before they did this. Note though that the rumours between the proposed buy out of legoland by Dubai never came to fruition - and therefore we must assume have been unfavoured by the Lego group. On the press release, lego didn't make a statement. In short, the original sealife centres and Legoland made sense - so much so there's a strong possibility that Sealife centres will open in legoland from 2008. (The model makers are sick of making pirate ships for the fish though in return but Thorpe park and Legoland? It'll be interesting to see what happens next. Will Blackstone try to integrate the brands - or keep them very distinct. Still, the CEO Nick Varney must be very pleased - to have become the CEO of the second largest themepark business on the planet - from controlling Sealife centres two years ago! And is it a good thing that there is in effect from tonight a duopoly on themeparks in the world - Disney versus the Blackstone backed Merlin it would seem?! And what would occur if Blackstone bought a controlling share in Disneylands. Now that would be a deal and half

As a Legoland employee, this is very exciting for me. To go from working for the Lego group, to being a part of a £1.5bn company in a little over two years is very exciting. To what extent do people on here think that Chessington and legoland will now push for cross brand strategies - eg nectar points/ Tesco clubcard issues, or indeed staff benefits packages. Bear in mind that overnight, if my maths is correct, the Lego Group have now got a 24% stake in places like the London Eye or Thorpe park - which is more that Dubai International. This is a very interesting business growth here...