Ex-Sea World Officials to Make Offer for Parks
Three former Sea World executives say they plan to make an offer to buy the four Sea Worlds and two other amusement parks that were put up for sale last month by owner Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Former executives Jan Schultz, Robert Hillebrecht and George Millay are the first group to publicly acknowledge that they are making a run at the parks, which HBJ is selling to reduce the massive debt it incurred last year to fend off a hostile takeover attempt by British corporate raider Robert Maxwell.
Meanwhile, Walt Disney, a company often mentioned as a likely Sea World suitor, may have taken itself out of the bidding. Richard A. Nunis, president of Walt Disney Attractions theme park division, said at a recent press conference that Disney had “taken a look” at a possible Sea World acquisition but found the properties “quite expensive.”
“I would personally rather see us spend the money” on original, Disney-created theme parks, Nunis said. “I think we could do things better ourselves.”
Reached by telephone on Tuesday, Schultz and Hillebrecht declined to say how much they will offer for the parks. Analysts have estimated that the six properties, which are being sold in a package, including 1,200 acres of raw land, could fetch from $1.2 billion to $2 billion. One source close to the deal said all bids for the parks must be submitted by the end of next week, the deadline set by HBJ.
“Whoever puts the most money on the table will win,” said Schultz, who was president of Sea World in December, 1987, when he resigned after a near-fatal accident involving a trainer and one of Sea World’s killer whales. “I suspect it will be a very interesting poker game.”
Hillebrecht was chief executive of HBJ’s parks division until resigning in 1984 and now runs a mergers and acquisitions consulting business in White Plains, N.Y. Millay, founder of the Sea World parks in San Diego, Ohio and Orlando, left to start Wet ‘n’ Wild, a water-oriented theme park chain with two locations in Dallas and one each in Orlando and Las Vegas.
Schultz said his group has yet to line up financing for the acquisition bid but is holding discussions with “numerous sources.” He said his group is presenting itself to potential financial partners as individuals with extensive expertise in running the aquatic parks.
But one member who asked not to be identified acknowledged that his group is at a financial disadvantage in the bidding because it lacks the financial clout that corporate competitors could muster. “We are definitely long shots,” the former executive said.
The three make up one of several groups expected to make offers for the properties, which include Sea Worlds in San Diego, Cleveland, Orlando and San Antonio as well as Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, Fla., and Boardwalk & Baseball in Haines City, Fla. HBJ has said it wants a sale agreement in hand by Sept. 30.
Other potential bidders mentioned by observers include Anheuser-Busch and MCA, each of which operates theme parks in Florida. HBJ Executive Vice President Robert Evanson has said that Japanese investors in the past have expressed interest in acquiring the Sea Worlds but would not comment Tuesday whether Japanese interests have made concrete offers.
Published reports have said that HBJ has been deluged with inquiries on the parks, although Orlando-based HBJ declined Tuesday to comment.
Thanks in part to widespread discounts and other promotions, Evanson said, attendance at Sea World of San Diego has rebounded from the sluggishness of earlier this year. Through last Saturday, attendance for the year to date was running 4.8% ahead of the same period in 1988. San Diego Sea World attendance in 1988, however, was down 2% from the previous year.
Coupons giving visitors a $4 discount off the standard $21 Sea World adult admission price are available at several San Diego fast-food locations.
Total year-to-date attendance at all six of HBJ’s theme parks is “down slightly” from the same 6 1/2 months of 1988, a source close to the transaction said.
Sources blamed higher air fares, gasoline prices and the increasing number of amusement parks competing for tourists in Central Florida as reasons for attendance sluggishness at Sea World and other attractions.
Bert Boksen, a chief investment officer with Raymond, James & Co. of St. Petersburg, who follows HBJ, said Tuesday that attendance in San Diego has also suffered from higher admission prices and because HBJ has failed to “invest in new exhibits” at the park.
Times staff writer Mary Ann Galante contributed to this story.
