Dubai bids for Legolands as it seeks home for oil wealth

JORDAN - Dubai's Government buyout fund is bidding for Lego's Legoland amusement parks two months after acquiring London's Madame Tussauds waxworks museum as the emirate uses its oil wealth to invest in Europe's entertainment industry.

"We will look to consolidate in the theme park sector in Europe through Tussauds," Dubai International Capital chief executive officer Sameer al-Ansari said in an interview in Jordan.

"We can't comment on how much we bid for Lego's parks," he said

Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates, which is using a windfall profit from record oil prices last year to double revenue from tourism in the next decade.

Billund Lego, based in Denmark, put its amusement parks up for sale in October as it tried to revive its business making toys such as Duplo building blocks. The company had its third annual loss in five years last year.

The Dubai fund in March paid 800 million ($2 billion) for Tussauds Group, whose London waxworks includes models of celebrities including David Beckham, Brad Pitt and Kylie Minogue.

The Chessington (England) company also runs theme parks such as Alton Towers and Chessington World of Adventures.

Legoland runs four parks in Denmark, Germany, England and California. The parks' attractions include lifesize Lego models of giraffes and hippopotami.

Buyout firms including Blackstone Group, Palamon Capital Partners, Spectrum Equity Investors and Apollo Management may make offers for Legoland worth more than 400 million, the Financial Times reported last month, without saying where it got the information.

"We expect the sale to be completed in the summer," Lego spokeswoman Charlotte Simonsen said. She declined to give details about specific bids the company had received.

Dubai may spend US$3 billion ($4.2 billion) to US$5 billion a year over the next five years to buy assets around the world, al-Ansari said. In January the emirate bought a US$1 billion stake in the German carmaker DaimlerChrysler AG.

- BLOOMBERG