Universal reveals £133m investment in Bedford theme park
US Media giant Comcast has revealed that it has already invested more than £130m in its upcoming Universal theme park in Bedford which was recently announced by the government.
The 540 acre Universal United Kingdom Resort is due to open in 2031 and is tipped to have rides themed to Jurassic World, James Bond and Paddington. In its first year 8.5m visitors are expected to stream through its turnstiles rising up to 12m within 20 years which would put it ahead of Disneyland Paris as Europe’s most-visited theme park.
It will be accompanied by a 500-room resort hotel and a sprawling shopping and dining district with the entire resort creating around 28,000 jobs. The blockbuster forecasts have spurred the government to roll out the red carpet for Comcast.
Planning permission for the resort was fast-tracked by ministers in December and earlier this month the Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy hosted Comcast’s chairman Brian Roberts at 11 Downing Street.
They unveiled the name of the resort and revealed that the government will invest £1.3bn in it, largely to upgrade the local transport infrastructure. Comcast has committed £6bn to building and running the resort making it one of the biggest-ever investments in Britain’s tourism sector. The company has already opened its purse strings.
Comcast acquired the land in August 2023 in a clever transaction which minimised the risk of a bidding war and kept the terms confidential. Rather than buying the land directly, Comcast acquired the company that owned the rights to it. As it was a private transaction the purchase price of the company didn’t have to be disclosed and its anonymous-sounding name added to the discretion.
The company that Comcast acquired is called Cloud Wing and it has two subsidiaries – SC Collection and Kempston Hardwick Developments which owned the principal rights to the land. Once Universal had acquired Cloud Wing it made SC Collection the developer of its new resort and changed its name to UDX Development Company in a nod to its Universal Destinations and Experiences theme park division.
UDX’s latest accounts show that by the end of 2023 Comcast group companies had lent it £132.6m which was used to cover the acquisition of the land and early development as well as a £32.3m tax charge on it. To ensure that UDX isn’t over-leveraged, Comcast then carried out a debt-for-equity swap so by the end of 2024 UDX had just £11.1m of debt and all the necessary land for the theme park. More than 100 people in the UK have already been employed by Universal to work on the project.
Walt Disney himself used a similar acquisition strategy when opening his theme parks. The first Disneyland in 1955 was such a success that a string of motels and restaurants sprung up next to it spoiling the immaculate theming of the resort. To prevent a repeat of this when he was developing Disney World in Orlando in the 1960s, Walt bought the land there using shell companies with cryptic names such as Tomahawk Properties and M.T. Lott Co.
If he had bought the land directly, the owners might have asked for more money safe in the knowledge that the buyer could afford it. Instead, Walt paid the going rate and word didn’t get out that he was behind it until he had snapped up multiple plots spanning a massive 43 square miles.
Unlike Walt Disney, Comcast is partly relying on public money. The UK government will spend £474m of its £1.3bn commitment on road and rail upgrades whilst the remainder will be paid to Comcast in two stages. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will transfer a £438m grant once Universal has completed its community infrastructure work with a further £400m paid when the resort opens.