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SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment

SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment
Public
Traded as SEAS
Industry Theme park operator
Founded March 15, 1960; 57 years ago (1960-03-15)
Headquarters Orlando, Florida, United States
Area served
Orlando, Florida; San Antonio, Texas; San Diego, California; Chula Vista, California; Tampa, Florida; Williamsburg, Virginia; Langhorne, Pennsylvania
Key people
Joel Manby, CEO
Products Theme park attractions, rides, and games
Revenue USD$1.377 billion (2014)
USD$160.59 million (2014)
USD$49.9 million (2014)
Total assets USD$2.44 billion (2014)
Total equity USD$579.5 million (2014)
Number of employees
22,100
Website Official website

SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment is a family entertainment, amusement park and attraction company formerly owned by Blackstone Group, which retains a minority share. It operates and maintains nine zoological theme parks eleven theme parks located throughout the United States. Formerly a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch since 1989, under which it was known as Busch Entertainment Corporation, SeaWorld Parks is headquartered in Orlando, Florida.

According a previous Securities and Exchange Commission filing, annual attendance for calendar year 2012 was 24.4 million, while attendance for the January 1-October 31, 2013 period was 18.9 million. Average revenue per attendee was $62.79, of which 62% consists of admission fees. 55% of revenues were generated from parks in Florida, 20% in California, and 11% in Virginia.

In October 2009, Anheuser-Busch InBev announced plans to sell the division to private-equity firm The Blackstone Group in order to reduce the debt load generated by InBev's 2008 purchase of Anheuser-Busch. The sale was completed on December 1, 2009 and with it came a new company name, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment.

Anheuser-Busch initially created the subsidiary to run the various Busch Gardens parks. The parks at Tampa, Florida and Williamsburg, Virginia were located adjacent to breweries, and the parks included tours of the facilities and even free samples of the products made there. In 1989, Anheuser-Busch purchased the theme park unit of publisher Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, which included the SeaWorld family of parks. The purchase also included two other parks in Central Florida: Cypress Gardens and Boardwalk and Baseball. Boardwalk and Baseball was promptly closed, while Cypress Gardens was later sold and transformed into Legoland Florida, which opened in October 2011. The parks were managed out of Anheuser-Busch's headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri until 2008, when the company relocated the division to Florida, where five of the company's ten parks were located.


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