Interesting power shifts taking place at the SeaWorld Entertainment board room. The Chairman of the Board, Yoshikazu Maruyama, is stepping down as Chairman, but he will stay on as a SeaWorld Director. Stepping up to replace him as Chairman will be Director Scott Ross who is the Founder and Managing Partner of Hill Path Capital LP, and prior to that was a partner at Apollo Global Management.
In addition to this, the Board of Directors has also added one more member (going from 7 to 8) named Charles Koppelman who’s comes as the Chairman and CEO of CAK Entertainment, with previous experience with Martha Stewart Living, EMI Records, and had served on the boards for the Las Vegas Sands and Six Flags, amongst others.
The movement of Maruyama isn’t surprising, as his attachment to the board came with the addition of Zhonghong Holdings to the company. With the termination of that deal, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Maruyama phased out of the board entirely at the end of his term.
Meanwhile the rise of Scott Ross to Chairman isn’t surprising either, as his Hill Path Capital investment company is now currently SEAS largest shareholder, owning a reported 16.62% of the company’s shares as of this week. By comparison, the second largest shareholder (Vanguard Group) only holds 7.47%. He is also no stranger to the amusement sector, as he worked for Apollo prior to starting Hill Path, which has had their hands in a number of entertainment / leisure company deals over the years.
This includes an attempted purchase of Cedar Fair in 2009/2010 that fell apart.
30% Ownership of Caesar’s Entertainment Corp (the casino company, not the pizza)
Purchase of Great Wolf Lodge in 2012 (later sold off in 2015)
Purchase of Chuck E. Cheese Entertainment in 2014
Apollo was also bidding to purchase Blackstone’s full ownship of SeaWorld Entertainment as well, back during the time period when SeaWorld’s ownership was private and had not yet gone “Public” with their stock IPO. Blackstone later made the choice to go public rather than sell the company privately, and walked head-first into the Blackfish PR disaster, from which they are still trying to recover. I’d bet Scott Ross was involved on the Apollo side of things back in 2013, and I find it interesting that he still had his sights set on SeaWorld years later after splitting to form his own investment company (Hill Path Capital). Perhaps a personal quest to finally get the big one that got away.
Given the changes we’ve seen taking place since former CEO Joel Manby left the company in early 2018 that have given rise to a more aggressive build out slate of thrill rides chain wide in 2019 and 2020, I do wonder if any new changes are in store going forward.
Source: Screamscape
screamscape.com
In addition to this, the Board of Directors has also added one more member (going from 7 to 8) named Charles Koppelman who’s comes as the Chairman and CEO of CAK Entertainment, with previous experience with Martha Stewart Living, EMI Records, and had served on the boards for the Las Vegas Sands and Six Flags, amongst others.
The movement of Maruyama isn’t surprising, as his attachment to the board came with the addition of Zhonghong Holdings to the company. With the termination of that deal, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Maruyama phased out of the board entirely at the end of his term.
Meanwhile the rise of Scott Ross to Chairman isn’t surprising either, as his Hill Path Capital investment company is now currently SEAS largest shareholder, owning a reported 16.62% of the company’s shares as of this week. By comparison, the second largest shareholder (Vanguard Group) only holds 7.47%. He is also no stranger to the amusement sector, as he worked for Apollo prior to starting Hill Path, which has had their hands in a number of entertainment / leisure company deals over the years.
This includes an attempted purchase of Cedar Fair in 2009/2010 that fell apart.
30% Ownership of Caesar’s Entertainment Corp (the casino company, not the pizza)
Purchase of Great Wolf Lodge in 2012 (later sold off in 2015)
Purchase of Chuck E. Cheese Entertainment in 2014
Apollo was also bidding to purchase Blackstone’s full ownship of SeaWorld Entertainment as well, back during the time period when SeaWorld’s ownership was private and had not yet gone “Public” with their stock IPO. Blackstone later made the choice to go public rather than sell the company privately, and walked head-first into the Blackfish PR disaster, from which they are still trying to recover. I’d bet Scott Ross was involved on the Apollo side of things back in 2013, and I find it interesting that he still had his sights set on SeaWorld years later after splitting to form his own investment company (Hill Path Capital). Perhaps a personal quest to finally get the big one that got away.
Given the changes we’ve seen taking place since former CEO Joel Manby left the company in early 2018 that have given rise to a more aggressive build out slate of thrill rides chain wide in 2019 and 2020, I do wonder if any new changes are in store going forward.
Source: Screamscape