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SeaWorld made a splashy public debut yesterday, rising 24.2 percent on its first day of trading — giving it a market cap of $3.1 billion.
The 11-unit theme park operator, best known for killer whale Shamu, is controlled by Steve Schwarzman’s Blackstone Group, which bought it from Anheuser-Busch in 2009 for $2.3 billion.
SeaWorld shares closed at $33.52, after opening about $3 above the $27 IPO price.
Blackstone sold 16 million shares for $406 million in the offering, reportedly making 2.6 times its investment. Blackstone affiliates will continue to control a majority of the voting power of SeaWorld’s 92.7 million shares in common stock.
The remaining 10 million shares were sold by SeaWorld, which said it expected to raise $254.4 million, after expenses. It planned to spend all but about $20 million of that to pay down debt.
SeaWorld creditors who got paid off included Blackstone Advisory Partners and Goldman Sachs.
The two, which were also underwriters on the deal, were expected to get 5 percent of the net proceeds of the offerings, the prospectus said.