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Seaworld for Sale

bward

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Hey all,

There's an article up on Drudge that Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) put an offer in to buy Seaworld San Diego.

Until I read that article, I wasn't aware that all three Seaworlds may be for sale. And that got the old wheels spinning.

Would Disney or Universal make a move to buy the Orlando Seaworld?

I know this is fantasy, but would it make sense for Disney or Universal to expand through acquisition like this?

bward
 

AwayWeGo

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[triennial - points]
Parent Company Was Bought Out.

Odd as it may seem, the enterprise that owns & runs Sea World & Busch Gardens, etc., is a subdivision of a major serious USA beer company that was recently bought out & taken over by a major serious European beer company.

Or maybe the actual takeover process is still underway following the recent buyout agreement, I don't know.

In any case, it may be that the new corporate owners are interested only in beer & are uninterested in running a string of theme parks.

If that's the case, then the buzz about selling off Sea World might not be completely bogus.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 

pgnewarkboy

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This sounds totally bogus. What they are talking about makes no sense from any perspective. For PETA, I don't see how the juice would be worth the squeeze. They would have to spend a fortune to buy one of the sites. Then they would have to spend another fortune to turn it into a so-called "virtual" sea world. Then nobody would come to the virtual sea world and they would lose another fortune. They could spend that kind of money elsewheres and get much more impact than setting free a few hundred or so denizens of the sea that would not probably survive in the wild anyway.
 

Talent312

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Odd as it may seem, the enterprise that owns & runs Sea World & Busch Gardens, etc., is a subdivision of a major serious USA beer company that was recently bought out & taken over by a major serious European beer company.
-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

As a youth, I would go to Busch Gardens - Tampa, when it was still an Anheuser-Busch brewery, b4 they turned it into a theme park. You could tour the brewery for free, go to their biergarten and drink as much beer for free as you liked. Good times.
 

bnoble

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InBev absolutely is planning to spin off the Busch parks in a sale: the two Busch Gardens, the three Sea Worlds, plus a couple smaller properties (Sesame Place, some water parks, etc.)

Disney has been named as interested, but I don't buy it---they don't buy parks, they build them. The Imagineers would throw tantrums if forced to fix someone else's "mess".

The two most likely players are: Blackstone and Parques Reunidos. Blackstone is a financial services/holding firm. It has a minority stake in Vivendi (which in turn owns the Universal parks). It also has a majority stake in Merlin Entertianment, which runs most of the better-known UK parks. Parques Reunidos is a Spanish firm that has a modest European presence, and recently bought the Kennywood Entertainment parks in the northeast US.

Of the two, I think Blackstone has the inside track, because they seem more likely to be able to pull together the capital. PR's advantage is that they do their buying in Euros, and that makes the Busch parks, denominated in dollars, cheaper by the day.
 

Big Matt

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Don't assume that all properties are going to be sold to one investor.

The sale of the non-brewery assets aren't part of the Inbev deal per se. I'm not sure whether it will be sold prior to the deal or if Inbev will handle it.

I've heard through fairly reliable sources that the Busch family may be keeping some of the properties (Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg) and selling some others.

I also know that Disney has wanted to open a history themed park. Ten years ago it was slotted for Haymarket, Virginia, but the locals nixed that.

There have been discussions that it would be fairly easy to convert Busch Gardens in Williamsburg to that park.

InBev absolutely is planning to spin off the Busch parks in a sale: the two Busch Gardens, the three Sea Worlds, plus a couple smaller properties (Sesame Place, some water parks, etc.)

Disney has been named as interested, but I don't buy it---they don't buy parks, they build them. The Imagineers would throw tantrums if forced to fix someone else's "mess".

The two most likely players are: Blackstone and Parques Reunidos. Blackstone is a financial services/holding firm. It has a minority stake in Vivendi (which in turn owns the Universal parks). It also has a majority stake in Merlin Entertianment, which runs most of the better-known UK parks. Parques Reunidos is a Spanish firm that has a modest European presence, and recently bought the Kennywood Entertainment parks in the northeast US.

Of the two, I think Blackstone has the inside track, because they seem more likely to be able to pull together the capital. PR's advantage is that they do their buying in Euros, and that makes the Busch parks, denominated in dollars, cheaper by the day.
 

AwayWeGo

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[triennial - points]
Transplanting Sea World.

Will anybody be surprised when the new owners sell off Sea World & the whole works gets uprooted & moved out there westward via Rt. 192 & re-installed on-site at Orange Lake ?

Wouldn't that be something ?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 

bookworm

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Don't assume that all properties are going to be sold to one investor.

The sale of the non-brewery assets aren't part of the Inbev deal per se. I'm not sure whether it will be sold prior to the deal or if Inbev will handle it.

I've heard through fairly reliable sources that the Busch family may be keeping some of the properties (Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg) and selling some others.

I also know that Disney has wanted to open a history themed park. Ten years ago it was slotted for Haymarket, Virginia, but the locals nixed that.

There have been discussions that it would be fairly easy to convert Busch Gardens in Williamsburg to that park.


Imagine a DVC property in Williamsburg. Just what we need, more options...:rolleyes:
 

BWV Dreamin

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Don't assume that all properties are going to be sold to one investor.

The sale of the non-brewery assets aren't part of the Inbev deal per se. I'm not sure whether it will be sold prior to the deal or if Inbev will handle it.

I've heard through fairly reliable sources that the Busch family may be keeping some of the properties (Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg) and selling some others.

I also know that Disney has wanted to open a history themed park. Ten years ago it was slotted for Haymarket, Virginia, but the locals nixed that.

There have been discussions that it would be fairly easy to convert Busch Gardens in Williamsburg to that park.

As a DVC owner, I would be all for that!!:cheer:
 
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