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Quite what the dons of Trinity College, Cambridge, made of the O2 centre's widely ridiculed rendering of Ben Hur is anyone's guess.
But perhaps after a deal today, they will be more inclined to head down to the Greenwich rock, pop and entertainments venue.
Trinity College — already one of Britain's biggest landowners — announced it has splashed out £24 million to buy the holding company of the 999-year lease for the Millennium Dome.
The deal means that the college will in effect take a cut of all future box office revenues, as the rent it charges operator Anschutz Entertainment Group is linked directly to ticket sales.
In return for its upfront investment, Trinity can expect to receive annual revenues of £1.6 million (last year's take) and rising.
How much the impact of Michael Jackson's death will have on this year's revenues is yet to be seen.
For AEG, run by US entertainment tycoon Philip Anschutz, nothing will change. AEG has invested £350 million in the Dome since taking it over and has won plaudits for turning Peter Mandelson's great white elephant into London's leading venue.
The deal was welcomed by the current owners of the lease, Quintain and Lend Lease Europe.
Quintain, which owned 49%, received £11.8 million for its share. That means it has exceeded by £3 million its target of selling properties in its portfolio totalling £50 million during the current year to strengthen its balance sheet.
Finance director Rebecca Worthington said: “The strategy we announced last August has not resulted in a total of £152.8 million being repatriated.”
Lend Lease and Quintain retain ownership of the huge development land around the Dome which the duo are redeveloping with a mixture of mostly commercial, residential and retail properties. It will include about 25,000 new homes.
Quintain is also redeveloping the area around O2's main rival for large-scale pop concerts, the Wembley Stadium.
Lend Lease chief executive Steve McCann said: “Greenwich Peninsula is one of Lend Lease's flagship urban regeneration projects in the London market.
“Today's sale marks an important milestone in the project and fits with Lend Lease's strategy of recycling its capital to drive the group's return on equity.”
The sale price came in about £4 million higher than originally expected when news broke that it was a front-runner in the bidding last month.
Reader views (1)
Is this the Dome that cost £6 BILLION of Taxpayers money to build and for which NO Politician has been held to account , for what turned out to be an upside doown eggshell full of Plastick Barbie type dolls....yes all for £6 BILLION.
- Clif, London, 09/10/2009 14:17
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