As we speculated in a post the other week, Orlando-based SeaWorld is going public. The move seems to indicate that as we emerge from our national recession, consumers feel a bit more free to spend their money on vacations and entertainment, which, of course, is SeaWorld's bread and butter.
The theme park operator is presently known as SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, recently filed an application to sell stock as SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc. The company has not set a date for its initial public offering yet, but it hopes to raise about $100 million.
In 2009, SeaWorld was purchased for around $2.5 billion by private equity frim Blackstone Group. Blackstone would retain a controlling stake in SeaWorld.
The last few years have been good to SeaWorld. Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that operating profit increased 34 percent during the first nine months of 2012 to reach $22 million. Overall revenue during the same timeframe was $1.2 billion. As of September, just under 20 million people visited SeaWorld's 11 theme parks. (Besides its flagship location, SeaWorld owns marine parks in San Diego and San Antonio and Busch Gardens Williamsburg in Virginia.)
If Blackstone feels comfortable enough in the state of the economy to let SeaWorld go public, we wonder what other companies are feeling. As any business owner can tell you, it's difficult to make ambitious plans for the future when you are not certain what economic conditions will look like.
Hopefully, 2013 will prove to be a banner year not only for SeaWorld, but for all Orlando businesses.
Source: The Orlando Sentinel, "SeaWorld files to sell stock in IPO," Jason Garcia, Dec. 27, 2012
- Filing for an initial public offering is one of the most important steps in the life of a business. For relevant information on the kind of assistance and counsel we can offer business owners, you could visit the Business Formation and Planning page of our website.
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