Stock Market Tumultuous Tuesday, Is Mickey Mouse Missing Mortgage Payments?
Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2010
Jun 01, 2010 - 10:08 AM

By: PhilStockWorld

OK, now we’re in trouble!

The Telegraph reports that Theme park operator Euro Disney is expected to breach its debt covenants for the next three years. Euro Disney runs the Disneyland Paris resort on the outskirts of Paris and it has been battered by the downturn as more holiday-makers have stayed at home and the pound has reached record lows against the euro. Euro Disney still has €1.9bn (£1.6bn) of the debt used to fund the park’s construction on its books. The company made a €26.4m operating profit on revenue of €1.2bn in the year ending September 30 2009 but paying €89.2m of financial charges on the debt left it with a €63m net loss.

The outlook is not improving. Attendance plummeted 8% to 6.5m visitors in the six months to the end of March 2010. Revenues for the period decreased 7% to €519m and Euro Disney’s net loss soared by €29m to €114m despite heavy cost-cutting. In December 2009, at one of the busiest times of the year, staff went on strike as part of a protest over a pay freeze. Since then, two Euro Disney employees have committed suicide. One was a chef who wrote on a suicide note that he did “not want to return to working for Mickeyâ€