Reuters reports that SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment may be close to filing paperwork for an IPO, taking the private chain public and putting it on the stock market in an attempt to raise upwards of $600 million. I got to admit that I think this is a bad idea… the volatile stock market has proven only to be a pain in the ass for theme park chains since the introduction of day trading. Since then there is less interest in long-term investments and more people looking for a quick turn around and theme parks are not a get rich quick investment. Parks require a lot of capital investment, and make slow gains over a prolonged period of time, but impatient stock holders dumping them only serves to lower the value of a good stable company.
Over the past few years we saw Cedar Fair take a beating on the market, from nearly being forced to sell out to another firm, to getting into lawsuit after lawsuit with Q Investments who were trying to throw their majority stake weight around in order to quickly raise stock prices, and then quickly sell off and vanish once again. The stock market did Six Flags no favors when they were plunging down into and through their own bankruptcy issues. Viacom sold off their own Paramount Parks chain because the slow growth of that segment of the company looked bad in comparison to the high profits raked in from blockbuster movie box office hits on the books.
SeaWorld Parks, as a company, has been in a much stronger position by staying private and off the market during these past few hard years and I know I’d love to see more park chains do what is needed to buy back their stock and get off the stock market roller coaster and focus on the core business.