UK's Merlin earnings up 6.2 percent on strong theme parks

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Merlin Entertainments, the tourist attraction company, beat forecasts with a 6.2 percent rise in 2018 core earnings, driven by a strong performance at its theme parks business, and said its outlook for 2019 was "positive".

For the year to Dec. 29 2018 the operator of Madame Tussauds waxworks, the London Eye and Alton Towers, made underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 494 million pounds. That compares to analysts' average forecast of 488 million pounds and 474 million pounds made in 2017.

Merlin said trading in 2019 so far has been in line with expectations. "Our 2019 outlook is positive and unchanged," it said.

(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Alistair Smout)