SeaWorld Orlando

[Owen]

I will still be missing it as I fly to Orlando on the last Saturday in August! :lol

[MakoMania]

Completely missed this but Electric Ocean will also run on September 2nd & 3rd

[Owen]

Completely missed this but Electric Ocean will also run on September 2nd & 3rd

After shuffling some bits around, I have managed to make  space to experience this event!

[MakoMania]

Whoop Whoop! Mako in the dark!

Don't miss Light up the Night, this is likely its last year!

[Owen]

Do we know if the firework show is taking place in September? Whilst the electric ocean write up says fireworks are included the Ignite page states it is finishing on August 5th...

It also seems Light Up The Night is still saying August 5th ending too.

[MakoMania]

I am 99.9% certain that fireworks will happen on every night of Electric Ocean.

[Owen]

After asking them on social media, it seems the entire event including Ignite is being extended!

[MakoMania]

Brilliant! Hope you have a blast, I'm sure you will do!

[MakoMania]

Whispers are circulating that SeaWorld (currently a public company on the NYSE) may be in the process of being bought out by a much larger company. As a reminder, SeaWorld Entertainment owns and operates 12 parks across the US including 3 SeaWorlds, 2 Busch Gardens, 3 Aquaticas, Sesame Place, Adventure Island, Discovery Cove and Water Country USA. A new SeaWorld park has been announced in partnership with Miral for Abu Dhabi and another Sesame Place park will open in the US in the early 2020s.

The main suspect is a Chinese company, called Zonghong Holdings who specialise in operating hotel resorts in Asia.

If successful, this would mean that SeaWorld no longer has to answer to shareholders at the stock exchange and could possibly mean that more money is available to invest in new rides, attractions and animal habitats across all the parks.

[Alex]

Zhonghong have bought a 21% stake in the company from Blackstone which should help as Blackstone have a reputation of cutting costs and milking the profits of big corporations. 

However even if they buy the rest of the company they will still be responsible to shareholders as Zhonghong are listed on Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

[MakoMania]

Indeed, but the difference is SeaWorld will be just one cog in a much larger machine meaning that hopefully a 5% decline in Orlando attendance won't send the share price crazy as it has been doing in recent years. The share volatility is what the major problem is, it has been at $21 and $14 within the past few weeks alone!

[Alex]

SeaWorld has always been a cog in a much larger machine, they were a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch and then Blackstone which has $371 billion of assets under it's management. 

However the share price would be volatile irrespective of who owns the remaining share of the company as investors are only concerned with the results of the company they have an interest in.

[MakoMania]

SeaWorld didn't have its own place on the stock market before April 2013, despite being a very small part of Blackstone. If SEAS is eventually acquired by Zonghong or another large group or groups, the share price volatility of SEAS will no longer be an issue as there won't be a SEAS share price whatsoever. The truth is, the company was always far too small and erratic to go it alone on the stock market, so I am glad that we may be seeing some sort of acquisition.

[Alex]

Correct it didn't, however it was still responsible to the stakeholders and Blackstone took $610 million in dividends out of the company before the IPO. Whilst it may not be on the stock market it will still be reporting to the stakeholders and it will still be expected to hit targets. I would compare it to Alton Towers and reporting to Merlin, being owned by a big company doesn't guarantee big capital expenditure especially when the park is struggling.

The truth is, the company was always far too small and erratic to go it alone on the stock market, so I am glad that we may be seeing some sort of acquisition.

The truth is? Sorry I wasn't aware you were a stock market expert. 

There are plenty of smaller companies on the stock market in worse situations than SeaWorld, so I'm not sure you can make that judgement. SeaWorld would have been much more stable without Blackfish and whilst the stock probably wouldn't have been a star performer it wouldn't have dropped as much as it has. I still think they would have suffered earnings wise and I think that will continue in the future with Universal and now Disney upping their capex meaning that they'll get an even bigger market share. 

The reality is Blackstone were looking at an exit strategy as they wanted a return on their initial $2.3 billion investment which was why they went for the IPO. Investment firms generally don't buy company to pump money into them, they're only interested in making a quick profit which usually results in cutting costs. A good example of this is 3G Capital who adopt a zero based budgeting approach in which the company has to justify every amount of money it spends, they've done this with Kraft Heinz as they were targeting savings of $1.5 billion a year. Once they've got their returns they'll sell the shares on for a premium which is exactly what's happened with SeaWorld.

[MakoMania]

I'm not a stock market expert but it's incredibly widely accepted that the company was too small to make a success of itself on the stock market.

Other than that I think I agree with pretty much everything else you wrote there!

[Alex]

Where's it been incredibly widely accepted that it was too small? What sources have said that?

[MakoMania]

Where's it been incredibly widely accepted that it was too small? What sources have said that?

Many articles over the years on investment sites like TheStreet, Orlando Business Journal, Financial Newsweek, Voice of Analysts.... the list goes on and on, and they're just the ones that I remember.

I don't just invent things for fun you know :P

Yes there are smaller companies on the stock exchange that are very successful, but you will be hard pressed to find a smaller public theme park company, especially one operating in as high risk of an entertainment market as Orlando.

I'm going to let this drop now, if you don't believe me (well, not really me because I'm just the messenger) then that's up to you

[Alex]

Could you point me in the right direction, would love to have a read through all the articles but after a quick google I can't find them. 

If you could post the links here it would be greatly appreciated

[Alex]

Sorry for the double post but I'm assuming I'm not getting the links to all the many articles on the matter?

[MakoMania]

Sorry for the double post but I'm assuming I'm not getting the links to all the many articles on the matter?

I'm not going to spend hours trawling through the internet trying to dig up articles from the IPO that are over half a decade old and may or may not still exist. As I said, I haven't the slightest clue about the stock market and I don't just make things up for the fun of it, I'm only pointing out what I remember from more than 5 years ago when the company first went public.