SeaWorld makes $3.4B offer for Kings Dominion parent company

Busch Gardens Williamsburg owner would also acquire Hanover theme park

Published February 3, 2022 by Katherine Schulte

A reported $3.4 billion acquisition bid from Orlando-based SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. could result in Virginia’s two major theme parks being under the same ownership.

SeaWorld, parent company of Busch Gardens Williamsburg, has made an unsolicited offer to acquire Ohio-based Cedar Fair Entertainment Co., which owns the Kings Dominion theme park in Hanover County’s Doswell area.

Bloomberg reported that SeaWorld’s bid is about $60 per unit in cash, totaling about $3.4 billion, according to sources it did not identify. Cedar Fair acknowledged to Bloomberg that it had received the “unsolicited, non-binding” acquisition offer and said that it is being advised on the matter by Perella Weinberg Partners LP and Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP.

Cedar Fair owns and operates 13 properties composed of 11 amusement parks, four outdoor water parks and resort accommodations totaling more than 2,300 rooms and 600 RV sites. It reported 2020 revenues of $182 million, down from $1.47 billion in 2019. Cedar Fair reported $753 million in revenue for the third quarter of 2021, up from the $87 million it recorded in the third quarter of 2020.

SeaWorld, owns 12 theme parks and reported $512.2 million in the third quarter of 2021, an increase of $415.1 million from the third quarter of 2020. In 2020, SeaWorld reported $431.8 million in revenue, a decline of $966.5 million from 2019.