We have a bit of good news to announce today, Sea World Entertainment has told their investors that they can survive “through 2021,” even without the parks opening this year according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Sea World is losing $25 million per month, but they secured $227.5 million in loans. But to keep going they had to furlough 95% of their staff, cut executive pay, “substantially cut capital expenses,” deferred paying vendors and frozen advertising expenses.
All of this also comes after their previous CEO Serge Rivera resigned at the beginning of the month. Currently Marc Swanson is serving as an interim CEO.
A lot of our fans and readers have been asking me about Sea World and we were very fearful they would have to close and the animals are being cared for. Many were asking me about that as well.
I should mention that while the majority of their employees try to get help via unemployment and federal programs the Orlando Sentinel mentioned that Sea World executives will still receive $6.8 million in stock options as long as they remain with the company. So it isn’t just Disney who has executives still getting paid and getting rewarded with stock options while the majority of their people try to figure out how to get by.
It does look like Sea World will be able to hold on, sadly it comes at the expense of the majority of their employees and vendors.
What do you think? Comment and let us know.
Source: Orlando Sentinel
Pirates & Princesses (PNP) is an independent, opinionated fan-powered news blog that covers Disney and Universal Theme Parks, Themed Entertainment and related Pop Culture from a consumer's point of view. Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of PNP, its editors, affiliates, sponsors or advertisers. PNP is an unofficial news source and has no connection to The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal or any other company that we may cover.