The assumption is that Merlin is seeking to buy just the Busch Gardens parks, as Merlin's corporate policy does not allow for the keeping of dolphins, whales, and other larger marine mammals as the SeaWorld parks do. But Merlin is in the aquatic animal business, too, as the Sea Life aquariums are among its many holdings in the industry.
According to the TEA/AECOM Theme Index, Merlin Entertainments is the world's second-largest theme park company by attendance, following Disney. In addition to Sea Life, Merlin also owns Legoland, Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, Gardaland, Madame Tussauds, and the London and Orlando Eye attractions.
Both companies have been owned by the private equity from Blackstone in the past. Merlin currently has a market value of about US$6.1 billion, while SeaWorld is valued at $1.3 billion. SeaWorld owns six theme parks: the three SeaWorld parks, in Orlando, San Antonio, and San Diego, the two Busch Gardens parks in Williamsburg, Va. and Tampa, and the Sesame Place park outside of Philadelphia. The company also owns five water parks around the country and Discovery Cove in Orlando.
SeaWorld's parks have been suffering flat to declining attendance since they were spun off from Anheuser Busch in 2009, following the brewer's acquisition by InBev. Earlier this year, China's Zhonghong Group bought 21 percent of the SeaWorld chain.
SeaWorld is licensing the Busch name from InBev and also licenses the Sesame Street characters in a deal that the company recently extended. Would those licenses continue after a sale? Would SeaWorld agree to split the company? How much could SeaWorld get for the two Busch parks and would that be enough to allow it to mount any reasonable challenge to the Universal parks that have pulled away from the SeaWorld parks over the past decade?
Stay tuned for answers.
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SeaWorld would definitely represent a step beyond those examples though - both in terms of logistics and public relations - so this report makes a lot of sense.
Knowing how Merlin works as a business, I'd actually suggest that the part of the portfolio they'd be most interested in would be Sesame Place - assuming they could work out a transfer of the licence. I can totally see them aggressively expanding that as per their other midway brands.
As for obtaining SeaWorld and phasing out the whales and dolphins, where would they go? Typically, when parks want to off-load marine mammals, SeaWorld is the refuge of last resort for them. (And do not even start with the ridiculous "sea pen" idea, which is pure legal and technical fiction. Anyone who brings that idea as a serious alternative ought to be immediately dismissed, without hesitation or remorse.) Releasing animals born in captivity into the wild is a death sentence. And neither Merlin nor another company wants the PR blowback from that.
The only path I can see would be through China. Perhaps SeaWorld under Merlin ownership becomes "Sea Life World" (branding synergy and an opportunity for a fresh US PR campaign!), with Zhonghong taking the SeaWorld brand to China, where it builds marine mammal parks that accept all the chain's whales and dolphins.
Otherwise, Merlin just takes the Busch Gardens properties (rebranding them as Merlin Gardens?) and maybe Sesame Place, and the remaining SeaWorld properties continue as something even closer to zoos than amusement parks. Lots of options here.
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