UK News 19-12-2001 US Billionaire Gets Dome For Free who: `Dome supremo` Lord Falconer what: Says Millennium Dome is to be taken over by Meridian consortium where: The Millennium Dome, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "The sorry saga of the Millennium Dome approached its final chapter yesterday," reports The Independent in its front page story One Amazing Deal, "when the Government handed over the failed attraction for nothing to private developers." Although the company plans to turn it into a sports and entertainment arena, the Millennium Dome will be empty for another three years and no cash will be paid to the public purse by the Meridian Delta Ltd consortium until December 2004, reports The Guardian. "Meridian, which is backed by Phil Anschutz, the US billionaire behind the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, will operate a 999 year lease in conjunction with English Partnership, the government agency that has handled the sale," explains The Financial Times. Anschutz, a 62 year-old Kansas-born oil company heir, has a personal fortune of $9.6bn (£6.6bn) and according to a Guardian profile he is "a regular churchgoer who runs marathons and rarely drinks alcohol" and gets up every day at 4.30am. "I wish them luck," says Paul Routledge in The Mirror. "I wouldn`t cross the road to see anything in that jinxed tent. And I hope the eejits who thought the Dome was a proper tribute to the Millennium have learned their lesson." [... more]

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