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| Sea World Believe (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment is rumored to be in the planning stage to go public with a IPO in early 2013. SeaWorld began as a single park in California, founded by a group of business venturist and friends from UCLA, back in the mid 1960s followed by a park, now closed, in Ohio. It wasn't until the third park, the one here in Orlando, was opened that SeaWorld and Shamu became household names. The ocean animal themed parks have a number of owners of the years including Harcourt, the publishing house, and most famously Anheuser Busch who added their two Busch Gardens parks to the mix. Once InBev bought Anheuser Busch they sold off the parks division, that now includes ten parks half of which are here in Florida including Aquatica, SeaWorld, and Discovery Cove in Orlando and the original Busch Gardens and Adventure Island parks in Tampa. When InBev sold off SeaWorld Parks the parks also moved their headquarters here to Orlando. Britain based Blackstone Group now owns the parks. When Blackstone Group purchased the SeaWorld parks in 2009 they had a 50% stake of the Orlando Universal Resort as well, though they sold that off to Comcast in 2011. Blackstone also owns Merlin who has the Legoland Florida park in Winter Haven and are developing the I-Drive Live complex where the Mercado was previously located.
SeaWorld Parks are in the midst of expansion plans coast to coast, recently purchasing a water park San Diego that is plans to brand as it's third Aquatica park. Here in Orlando SeaWorld is undergoing it's largest expansion yet with the massive Antarctica themed section that will include a one of a kind ride system. In 2011 SeaWorld Parks reported $1.3Billion in revenue and attracted 24million visitors over it's ten parks.
The IPO will be lead by Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N). SeaWorld is aiming to raise between $500 to $600 million with the IPO. It's rumored that the money raised will be used to fuel more expansions at the parks across the country.
