Shocker in Europe: Star Parks are sold again!

Grevin/compagnie des alpes (owner of Parc Asterix, Pleasurewood Hills, Bagatelle, etc.) just announced they bought 5 parks out of 7 from Palamon, a capital/investment group. Palamon had bought those parks from Six Flags in 2004.

Walibi World in the Netherlands, Walibi Belgium, Aqualibi and Bellewaerde in Belgium and Walibi Aquitaine and Rhones-Alpes in France. 2 parks, Walibi Lorraine in France and Movie Park Germany are not part of the sale.

I wonder if there will be another name change. :)

I am suprised that Grevin/compagnie des alpes had enough capital to purchase those parks. Walibi World and Walibi Begium are pretty big parks. I think both of them are bigger than Asterix.

It seems that Grevin is very, very wealthy.

I just wonder why they didn´t buy the parks two years ago.

Here are the visitor numbers which were publishd in a french newspaper today:

- Walibi Belgium & Aqualibi (1,3 Million)

- Bellewaerde Park (0,8 Million)

- Walibi World (0,9 Million) !!!!!

- Walibi Rhone-Alpes (0,4 Million)

- Walibi Aquitaine (0,3 Million)

Especially the visitor numbers for Walibi World (SFHolland) are shockingly low.

I am not a fan of Grevin. They seem to do good things for small parks, and they are very clever. But if you are interested in big rides, they don´t deliver.

Thinking about it... Walibi World will probably be "dismantled" piece by piece. Star Parks already started that by sending the Huss Breakdance and Chance Inverter and Chaos to the other parks in the chain... I expect half the coasters at Walibi World to be gone elsewhere within 2-3 years.