From the humble beginnings of being a parking attendant at Busch Gardens, James D. Atchison now thirty years later, is the Chief Executive Officer and President of SeaWorld Entertainment. His publicly traded company owns and operates Busch Gardens.
With the SeaWorld IPO debuting at the New York Stock Exchange, the share price opened at US$30.56 per share before closing at US$33.52 per share. The original price of the IPO was at US$27 per share and with the IPO, a value of US$2.5 billion was raised for the theme park operator.
The large part of the IPO proceeds would go to the Blackstone Group, who bought the company in 2009 for US$2.3 billion. The private equity firm retains control over the operator. The proceeds retained by SeaWorld would in turn be used by the company to reduce debt and achieve its corporate goals.
A hint was provided by the CEO, as the current portfolio of SeaWorld Entertainment are eleven theme parks all in the United States. Atchison said, "We could take our Shamu show in Orlando and probably show it in our Malaysia or Abu Dhabi or Dubai. There's a lot of interest in our brands from overseas."
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