ITALY - Blackstone to buy Gardaland from Investindustrial

According to sources, Investindustrial is to sell leisure complex Gardaland to the Blackstone Group for a sum reported to be over EUR 500m. Gardaland is Italy's largest amusement park with approximately 3 million visitors per year and over 250 shareholders. Last year, Investindustrial and Aletti Merchant, the merchant bank of the BPVN Group, acquired 90% of the company in a buyout reportedly worth EUR 310m. The deal took two years to close and was extremely complex, with a number of players having failed to complete it in the past, including Blackstone itself and the Tussauds Group, management company of the homonymous wax museum in London.