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Alf33

If all else fails, lower your standards.
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Jun 8, 2013
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On the 13th SEAS posted preliminary revenue results that should be a company record. Here is some of the text from their SEC filing.

"Driven by record fourth quarter total attendance at the Company’s SeaWorld-branded parks in Orlando, Fla., San Diego, Calif. and San Antonio, Texas, total revenue for 2013 is expected to be approximately $1.46 billion which would represent a full-year record for the Company in its 50-year operating history.

Additionally, the Company reaffirmed its full-year 2013 Adjusted EBITDA guidance range of $432 million to $442 million. Final earnings anywhere within the guidance range also would represent a full-year record for the Company.

“We are very pleased with our fourth quarter performance, particularly for the SeaWorld-branded parks in Orlando and San Diego, which helped us to achieve record revenue for the year,” said Jim Atchison, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company.

The Company expects to release final fourth quarter and fiscal year 2013 results in March 2014."

Even though this sounds like good news it may not be as in reading this article I found here; http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2014/01/17/seaworld-problems-with-earnings-quality/ (note: this article also has some Blackfish info in it) the company has highly leveraged its debt. Also the article points out that their EBITDA numbers are not produced like most companies do them. This makes SEAS number look more favorable. Even still the company thinks it can manage the debt and maybe even take on some more. Having Blackstone sell a bunch of their shares recently reduces their leverage in managing the company which should put current management in a better position to run the company more like they want to. As such S&P recently upgraded the company (mentioned in the article) after it was downgraded a while ago . Another article I read said that there's a possibility in the future for the company to convert itself over to a REIT. That would put it in better financial position and put it in the same category as a lot of other parks.

It's going to be interesting to see what the final financial filings have in them and also what attendance numbers come out as. I really hope that this is the start of them turning things around so all of the budget cuts stop and they can improve the parks.
 
Seaworld officially put out it's SEC report for the 4th qtr of last FY Thursday afternoon which also has the full year results.  Here's some of the highlights that they opened the report with.

Record revenue of $1,460.3 million in 2013, an increase of $36.5 million, or 3%, compared to 2012.
Record Adjusted EBITDA of $439.1 million in 2013, an increase of $23.9 million, or 6%, compared to 2012.
Adjusted Free Cash Flow of $169.8 million in 2013, an increase of $58.1 million, or 52%, compared to 2012.
Announced fiscal 2014 revenue guidance in the range of $1,490 million to $1,520 million and Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $450 million to $465 million.

Along with this they also offered another 18mil shares of stock for sale and repurchased 1.5mil shares.  Also they declared another $0.20/share stock dividend.  These dividends puzzle me as normally a company doesn't issue a dividend unless it's a mature company that has a lot of free cash on hand that they don't know what to do with (think Apple and MS).  Seaworld has had to finance a butt load of their debt that Blackstone put on them from their purchase/IPO which has them highly in debt.  However Blackstone doesn't care as it wants it's money back from what it financed for the purchase and this is a quick way to get it.

"Attendance in 2013 declined by 4.1% from 24.4 million guests in 2012 to 23.4 million guests in 2013".  They gave a few reasons for the decline including "planned pricing and yield management strategies that increased revenue but reduced low yielding and free attendance" along with the usual weather statement and an early Easter.  Also "Despite record fourth quarter attendance at the Company’s SeaWorld-branded parks, consolidated fourth quarter attendance declined by 1.4% to 4.5 million guests in 2013".

The bottom line here is that for the 4th quarter the company had a NET loss of $13.50mil but overall for the FY they had a profit of $50.47mil.  This was lower than 2012's profit of $77.44mil.  When you look at the report section that has the EBITDA then it becomes more confusing as Seaworld is known to have some "interesting" items it puts in the way it calculates its EBITDA figures.  Regardless the nice uptick in free cash flow is good to see. However here's the bad news...their total long term debt is $1.657 billion.  But this is down from $1.845 billion from 2012.  Virtually all of this debt is from Blackstone's purchase/IPO and the financing of the dividends.

Here's a powerpoint that Seaworld posted with the results. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564902/000119312514097710/d692873dex992.htm
 
DO you mind fully writing out what, "EBITDA" is. I am sure there are some non-stock market knowledgeable people who do not know what that means/is. Me included.
 
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Party Rocker said:
DO you mind fully writing out what, "EBITDA" is. I am sure there are some non-stock market knowledgeable people who do not know what that means/is. Me included.

It stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. The EBITDA of a business gives an indication of its current operational profitability.
 
It's pretty much profit before the government and banks get their cut :) That's simple and doesn't cover everything but for the laymen it's close.
 
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Interesting:

From Screamscape: SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment - (3/20/14) According to the Orlando Biz Journal, SeaWorld Entertainment is looking to grow and add more parks. Domestically they indicate that they may look into building more Sesame Place, Discovery Cove or Aquatica style parks, while saving the SeaWorld brand for potential new international projects… if they can find the right international partner to make a deal with. You may recall it wasn’t all that long ago that SeaWorld announced plans to build not just one, but four new theme parks, in Dubai on the outer island of the Palm Jebel Ali project, which would have been reshaped to resemble a giant killer whale. Those plans quickly folded along with the rest of the big blue sky dreams of Dubai launched around that same time period. With the world economy now settling back down, it looks like SeaWorld is looking to kickstart their international expansion plans once again.

Here is the Orlando Business Journal article it links to. I guess they have enough money to expand, despite (or maybe due to) the budget cuts.
 
Basically, they want someone to pay for the the cost of building the new park, but they keep the larger profit. Seems like a global outreach may not happen with that kind of plan. I can see if they partnered with someone and being SeaWorld is the brand, they might be able to cut a 25/75 deal or something of that sort.

I really like the idea of building up the smaller brands like Sesame Place, Aquatica, and Discovery Cove. I am not sure how much build up of Aquatica you can do seeing as Aquatica is SeaWorld's water park and every SeaWorld already has one now.

I would like to see Discovery Cove turn into a real resort park, so you can stay on-property instead of at a partnering hotel. I feel like they could expand Discovery Cove that way, then add that type of resort by each SeaWorld, giving you three parks and a hotel all right next to each other in the three various areas SeaWorld is located.
 
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I'm not sure the other seaworld locations are warm enough all year to pull off discovery Coves. They would not be as tropical for sure. I guess they could do a seasonal one. Does San Diego have room though?

Also wouldn't this be a perfect time to convert water country to Aquatica? I think so.
 
Busch did try to expand the Sesame Place brand in the 80s with a park in Texas, but that quickly closed down due to severe competition from the other theme parks in the area (Although there were a number of more successful Sesame branded parks outside the US. I don't think that those parks were Busch owned). I really can't think of many other areas to stick one in the US.

As for expanding the other brands, I can see Busch headed to other countries in the coming years as long as the chain still makes a killing. Attendance seems to be on the increase with all the cool new stuff going around Orlando and So Cal. Can't say much for Texas since that park seems to be the red headed stepchild of the chain. I can definitely see a Discovery Cove appearing in CA at least.

I'll say there are plenty of different touristy areas that could pull a Discovery Cove style experience. Especially in places that don't already have all-inclusive dolphin tours.

"Attendance in 2013 declined by 4.1% from 24.4 million guests in 2012 to 23.4 million guests in 2013".

EDIT: I'm a bit thrown off by this though. Does it mean that the entire chain had a drop in attendance? Seems kinda weird since Sea World reported record attendance earlier. I guess the other parks have a bit of catching up to do.
 
Some people are blind, or choose to ignore the fact that the BGs can have a decrease in attendance. JUST HAVE FUN!
 
Nobody said anything about the Busch parks having perfect attendance. I don't understand where you're getting that vibe from. I was just curious to see why the overall attendance dropped chainwide instead of increased due to Sea World's record year or remained the same from all the cutbacks and attendance drop at the Busch parks.
 
I didn't say you specifically, but there are many other people on these forums who believe that. I understand you were just asking a question, that comment wasn't in any way directed at you.
 
No, there are people who think that the attendance was good last year, which as you can see, was very, very wrong.
 
I don't think it is because they believe the park can't drop attendance. I think it is more along the lines of poor guessing. When you try to guess, everything seems more neutral than typical. Like guessing, I would say it was an average year, not exceeding expectations, but not failing. Looking at numbers, may or actually shows otherwise.
 
Okay, whatever you think's right. But when another park's attendance is so bad that it negates every single other parks near record/record attendance, I don't find that to be average.
 
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