19 May 2010
Palamon Capital Partners sells Movie Park Germany

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Palamon Capital Partners (“Palamon”), one of Europe’s leading mid market private equity firms, has sold Movie Park Germany (“the Park”) to Parques Reunidos, the international entertainment operator based in Madrid, for an undisclosed amount. Movie Park Germany, Germany's third largest theme park, is the remaining asset of the Star Parks Group, a holding company created by Palamon in 2004 to purchase seven large-format theme parks from Six Flags, Inc. In 2006, six of the seven parks were sold and the group turned its attention to the repositioning and turnaround of Movie Park Germany.

With Palamon’s support, the Star Park’s management team embarked on an aggressive three year programme to re-focus the Park to appeal to a broader family audience. The result was a 40% increase in attendance, an almost 50% increase in revenue and a seven-fold increase in profitability. The successful sale of the Park drives the overall return on Palamon’s investment in Star Parks to 2.3x.

Jonathan Heathcote, Partner at Palamon commented: “We are delighted to have completed on this transaction for Movie Park Germany, a business that has seen substantial profitable growth over the past three years driven by strong attendance levels. Bill Muirhead and his team have done a superb job executing on the original strategy. This is a solid final result for our successful investment in Star Parks.”

Bill Muirhead, CEO of Star Parks, said, “It has been an exciting time working in partnership with Palamon to implement a family-oriented theme park strategy and very rewarding to see Movie Park Germany come into its own. The Star Parks team is very proud of our accomplishment.” This sale marks another strong exit for Palamon, which most recently exited Nordic area consumer credit company, Nordax Finans AB, at a 3.7x return on investment. Focusing on the European mid-market, Palamon has maintained strong deal flow over the past year, executing three investments valued at over € 500 million.

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