SeaWorld Parks Files for IPO

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By Paul Ausick Published

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SeaWorld Entertainment Inc., which is wholly owned by The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE: BX), has filed for an initial public offering to raise $100 million. The number of shares on offer and the selling price of the shares has not been determined, nor has the IPO date.

Co-managers of the IPO are Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS), J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS) and Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC).

SeaWorld owns 11 theme parks in the United States and, according to the filing, attracted 24 million visitors in the 12 months ended in September. The stock will trade under the symbol SEAS, but the exchange was not named.

Blackstone will retain most of the voting rights to SeaWorld, while the proceeds from the sale will be used to pay off debt, make a one-time payment to an affiliate of Blackstone, and for general corporate porpoises — er, purposes.

The full filing is available here.

Paul Ausick

Photo of Paul Ausick
About the Author Paul Ausick →

Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.

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