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Merlin Interested in Purchasing Busch Gardens Theme Parks?

Rick said:
Although Friday was Jones’ last day as Legoland’s general manager, he addressed reports that Merlin Entertainments is interested in purchasing Busch Gardens.

“We like Busch Gardens in Tampa; we like Busch Gardens in Williamsburg (Va.),” he said. “We are in a very strong position to acquire them if they are for sale.”

http://www.theledger.com/news/20170811/i-4-commercial-corridor-conference-looks-at-future-past-present
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Which is business talk for "the guys are in the conference room working up a proposal".
 
matthewgcole said:
Which is business talk for "the guys are in the conference room working up a proposal".
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Agreed - I think that is a very strange quote if there are no discussions at all. They're both public companies so everyone has to be a little cagey.
 
What was it Nick Varney said about woodies in 2013?

Buinesses often can change their minds about stuff like this, They probably said their not up for sale because they're probably making a deal about buying the parks already.

But we never know Merlin just be buying shares or even doing a deal in building hotels at the parks.
 
Bert2theSpark said:
But we never know Merlin just be buying shares or even doing a deal in building hotels at the parks.
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Unless the Busch parks were spun off into a subsidiary of the existing company I am not sure how that would work, but there could be a complex deal.

I do think this could fly though... I think Merlin could have these in the next couple of months.
 
Publicly traded companies are very limited in what they can actually say. The fact that Merlin have done nothing to deny this, says to me that something at some point has been/is being considered.

If SEAS have not been approached, then of course they would deny the parks are up for sale, but it doesn't mean they wouldn't entertain offers if approached.

It makes sense, as it looks like SEAS will soon need to offload some assets to protect the core. It wasn't floated very long ago so I doubt the shareholders would be keen to rack up debts to reverse the decline or respond well to a rights issue.
 
I assume the SeaWorld brand isn't deemed worth buying due to the killer whale issues. As the basics of combing the Sea-Life and SeaWorld brands could make sense if it wasn't for the bad press around whales.

The Busch Parks do also make sense as part of Merlin group as there are quite a few similarities to their European parks in that they are quite rollercoaster heavy parks. There are probably also similarities between Chessington and BG Tampa as they both have zoo elements, although on very different scales! Maybe the management of the UK parks could also learn things from the BG parks management.
 
Busch Gardens Williamsburg is the last park in the world I would trust Merlin with.

Let them have the Sea World parks, just don't let them run yet another beautiful theme park into the ground.
 
MaxPower said:
Busch Gardens Williamsburg is the last park in the world I would trust Merlin with.

Let them have the Sea World parks, just don't let them run yet another beautiful theme park into the ground.
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Gardaland? I'm sure that's a Merlin park which is regarded the best Merlin park due to how they've maintained it. Cbeebies Land is well maintained as well. Just proves that Merlin can meet standards when standards are set.
 
MaxPower said:
Busch Gardens Williamsburg is the last park in the world I would trust Merlin with.

Let them have the Sea World parks, just don't let them run yet another beautiful theme park into the ground.
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5 years ago you would have a point but the current owners have already been screwing the parks over.

Merlin to give them limited credit don't directly go in to screw parks over, they just don't go for long term strategy. If the parks perform in the short term they will get investment and as for operations Merlin don't micromanage (hence why even now Towers operates rides better than Thorpe) so again so long as parks perform and operating budget is maintained not much will change.
 
I think that's a very good description of Merlin actually. Hence why I actually think this would be great for both parks. As long as parks are making money and have room to make more, they'll get investment from Merlin. If the BG parks stay as they are, their future could be very complicated and they are wedded to a company that needs to stop the rot and balance it's books quickly. This has the potential to throw up a multitude of scenarios.
 
Dave said:
5 years ago you would have a point but the current owners have already been screwing the parks over.
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How exactly? Both Busch parks and their associated waterparks have seen their highest ever levels of investment in recent years and I can't think of one recent attraction in either park that hasn't been well recieved. You can also add extended opening hours to midnight on some summer days and more in park special events to what has been done recently. SeaWorld definitely have their flaws, but Merlin have far more. You only have to look at the parks to see that. I really don't want Busch Gardens to be a 10am-4pm park!

As a side note it may be worth mentioning that many of Merlin's animal properties are not AZA accredited which is slightly concerning.
 
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MakoMania said:
How exactly? Both Busch parks and their associated waterparks have seen their highest ever levels of investment in recent years and I can't think of one recent attraction in either park that hasn't been well recieved.
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I'm not sure about "well received" because it's quite a subjective/wooly phrase, but it's perhaps fair to say that the parks have taken a much lower key approach in terms of investments with things like Cobra's Curse, Tempesto & InvadR, over things like Alpengeist, Montu, Kumba and Apollo. Merlin have done that too, in some ways.
 
Rick said:
I'm not sure about "well received" because it's quite a subjective/wooly phrase, but it's perhaps fair to say that the parks have taken a much lower key approach in terms of investments with things like Cobra's Curse, Tempesto & InvadR, over things like Alpengeist, Montu, Kumba and Apollo. Merlin have done that too, in some ways.
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I can see what you mean by that. It is important that a park rounds out its lineup though, both parks were lacking a solid family coaster so Cobra's Curse and InvadR were built. Other additions like Falcon's Fury for example I would argue is of the stature of the 1990s projects.

I'm not trying to pretend that the current SEAS format is perfect, it certainly isn't as good as when the Busch family owned all the SeaWorld parks, but it is for sure better than Merlin!
 
@MakoMania I largely agree. I also think that some parks just don't see the return on £25m of Swiss steel that they once did and you can do the same business by spending your money on other stuff.
 
MakoMania said:
How exactly? Both Busch parks and their associated waterparks have seen their highest ever levels of investment in recent years and I can't think of one recent attraction in either park that hasn't been well recieved. You can also add extended opening hours to midnight on some summer days and more in park special events to what has been done recently. SeaWorld definitely have their flaws, but Merlin have far more. You only have to look at the parks to see that. I really don't want Busch Gardens to be a 10am-4pm park!

As a side note it may be worth mentioning that many of Merlin's animal properties are not AZA accredited which is slightly concerning.
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At Williamsburg they have moved from highly themed attractions to off the shelf shuttle coasters, reduction in operating hours and special events. The CEO of SEA said last year he was cutting staff numbers and reducing spend on theming and events to keep the business solvent.

Sounds very Merlin.
 
@Dave If it was to keep the company solvent that doesn't sound like an overreaction to me! Being solvent is fairly crucial.

It's fair to say that they've had more than their fair share of stuff to deal with. There aren't many backlashes like this in corporate history. One so big that the company's solution to it is to remove their signature offering that is basically the reason they are what they are in the first place.
 
Dave said:
At Williamsburg they have moved from highly themed attractions to off the shelf shuttle coasters, reduction in operating hours and special events. The CEO of SEA said last year he was cutting staff numbers and reducing spend on theming and events to keep the business solvent.

Sounds very Merlin.
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There has been no reduction in special events at all. Part of the new CEO's strategy is to increase special events to drive attendance. The Howl-O-Scream and Christmas offerings grow almost every year!

Lets focus purely on Williamsburg for a minute. The park is absolutely beautiful but very few of their attractions are highly themed. Griffon, Alpengeist and Apollo's Chariot have some theming, but nothing extensive. This has been continued with Tempesto and InvadR but Verbolten (another recent addition) is one of the best themed rides in the park.

I personally see no problem with having an off the shelf coaster in the park if it helps to round out the park's lineup and is a fun and repeatable experience, Tempesto ticks all of these boxes and is one of the best rides in the park.

Just as a final thing, SeaWorld is not currently in danger of falling off a financial cliff, the SeaWorld branded parks have taken some substantial hits mainly due to innacurate reporting but they do seem to be stabilising a bit now. They are still very profitable, just not as profitable as they were a few years ago.
 
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