SeaWorld Entertainment (SEAS) Tops Q4 EPS by 11c, Revenues Beat

SeaWorld Entertainment (NYSE: SEAS) reported Q4 EPS of ($0.58), $0.11 better than the analyst estimate of ($0.69). Revenue for the quarter came in at $154.1 million versus the consensus estimate of $122.11 million.

Fourth Quarter 2020 Highlights

• Attendance was 2.2 million guests, a decline of 2.5 million guests from the fourth quarter of 2019.
• Total revenue was $154.1 million, a decline of $143.9 million from the fourth quarter of 2019.
• Net loss was $45.5 million, a decline of $21.4 million from the fourth quarter of 2019.
• Adjusted EBITDA[1] was $22.7 million, a decline of $61.2 million from the fourth quarter of 2019.
• Admission per capita increased 9.4% to $41.44 while in-park per capita spending increased 9.5% to $27.96.

"Our fourth quarter results demonstrated continued operational improvement and financial stability as we continue to navigate through these extraordinary times," said Marc Swanson, Interim Chief Executive Officer of SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc. "Guests showed a continuing desire and interest to visit our parks, especially during our Halloween and Christmas events. We are pleased we generated positive Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter and our net cash flows approached breakeven, excluding deferred vendor payments reflecting our continued focus on expense and cash management and improving attendance and operating trends. I am pleased with our strong total revenue per capita performance during the quarter, despite COVID-19 operational impacts and a higher mix of season pass guests when compared to the prior year. Our pricing and product strategies are working, and our guests are spending when they visit our parks. As we enter 2021, we are pleased that guests are returning, including for our popular food and music festivals. As with all our recent events, we have redesigned our food and music festivals with enhanced health and safety protocols for our ambassadors, guests and animals. We have also implemented new operating calendars across several of our parks in 2021 based on learnings over the past 12 months. In particular, for the first time in over a decade we are operating year round at our SeaWorld park in Texas, and for the first time ever we have begun year-round operations at our Busch Gardens park in Virginia and at our Sesame Place park in Pennsylvania. These parks are now open primarily on weekends and holidays during the winter season, in advance of their traditional operating seasons. We now have year-round operations at eight of our 12 parks. Only our water parks in California (Aquatica California), Texas (Aquatica Texas), Tampa (Adventure Island) and Virginia (Water Country USA), are not open year round."

"Our fourth quarter and fiscal 2020 results clearly demonstrate our Company's agility, creativity and determination to operate in one of the most challenging environments we have ever encountered," continued Swanson. "While the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted our operations with park closures in the spring followed by restricted openings including capacity limitations, our ambassadors worked collaboratively to find ways to operate within the health and safety guidelines established by federal, state and local governments. I am grateful for their commitment, teamwork and passion as they took care of our guests, our animals and each other throughout this period. In addition, I am pleased that we were able to operate our parks more efficiently than ever before due to our relentless focus on expense management and culture of operational efficiency."

"We look forward to the time when our parks can return to a more normalized operating environment. We believe there are significant additional opportunities to further improve and enhance our execution and drive meaningful growth in revenue and Adjusted EBITDA when our parks are no longer restricted by capacity limitations, and event restrictions. We have identified meaningful additional cost savings opportunities that we believe will lead to strong margin improvement in the coming years. We are excited about the future and the opportunity to deliver significant operational and financial improvement that we expect will lead to meaningful increases in shareholder value once we have returned to a normalized operating environment. As I have said before – and I feel even stronger about it today – we feel very well positioned with the right assets, team, balance sheet and liquidity to navigate through this environment and emerge an even stronger and more profitable enterprise," concluded Swanson.

For earnings history and earnings-related data on SeaWorld Entertainment (SEAS) click here.

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