SeaWorld Entertainment (SEAS) Tops Q1 EPS by 20c, Revenues Beat

SeaWorld Entertainment (NYSE: SEAS) reported Q1 EPS of ($0.57), $0.20 better than the analyst estimate of ($0.77). Revenue for the quarter came in at $171.9 million versus the consensus estimate of $123.62 million.

"Our first quarter financial results continue to demonstrate our ability to strategically operate in the current environment," said Marc Swanson, Chief Executive Officer of SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc. "I am extremely proud that we not only generated positive Adjusted Net Cash Flow during the quarter, but we achieved higher Adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter compared to the first quarter of 2019. The success of the strategic pricing, marketing, cost and capital investment initiatives that we developed and had been refining prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic combined with the strategies we developed and actions we have taken during the COVID-19 pandemic period helped us deliver meaningfully positive first quarter Adjusted EBITDA when compared to both the first quarters of 2020 and 2019. Our pricing and product strategies are clearly working, and our guests are spending more when they visit our parks. Our first quarter events including new or expanded event days at some of our parks as well as several new or reimagined venues we launched during the quarter helped contribute to the increased guest spending. We are excited to have experienced a robust Spring Break season across our parks including several days where our parks reached capacity limitations for the current operating environment. To be clear, we believe our attendance would've been notably higher, were it not for capacity limitations and closed parks. Attendance trends have improved relative to 2019 during the first quarter of 2021, which included a slight benefit from an earlier Easter/Spring Break period when compared to the first quarter of 2019. We are encouraged by our guests desire to visit and spend at our parks and believe this is a good indicator for expected demand during our peak summer season."

"We expect that our parks will return to a more normalized operating environment as the year progresses. Despite the progress we have made, we continue to believe there are significant additional opportunities to improve our execution and drive meaningful growth in revenue and Adjusted EBITDA when our parks are no longer restricted by capacity limitations and event and other restrictions. We are successfully navigating through this extraordinary environment and we are confident we are emerging 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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