Friday, June 13, 2008

What About Busch's Parks?


This past week InBev, a Belgian beer company announced that they want to purchase Anheuser-Busch and make the world's biggest brewing company.

Well, as we know Anheuser-Busch owns Busch Entertainment Corp., and thus the Sea World, Busch Gardens, and several other parks. So now we must wonder, if InBev is successful at purchasing the company - what will become of the parks?

This article discusses some of the possibilities, of course the parks could be sold (but who is in a position to but them ... probably private equity) or kept by the new owners. Busch Entertainment parks are some of the most beautiful ones around, so regardless of who owns them I hope they keep status quo as far as operating goes.


3 comments:

Unknown said...

maybe sig flags or someone like that will buy it

does this beer company have any experience in running themeparks, i hope the worst doesnt happen :s

Chris said...

This is terrible news, and sadly shows that companies that diversify into theme parks tend to spin them off (e.g. Paramount, Warner Brothers). With NBC/Universal rumored to be cradling the trigger on their own parks, that would leave Disney as the sole diversified company owning a theme park chain. Of couse, there's the movement to horizontally integrate from inside out with Six Flags, however, I do not see them as a major media contender in the forseeable future.

NewsPlusNotes said...

It would be a major bummer if the Busch parks were sold off ... but I guess it all depends on who's hands they would land in.

I would hope that the new owners, Inbev, (if it happens) would respect that the Busch Gardens parks have a major tie-in to beer tasting and such ... and keep them for goodwill.

Plus, unlike the former Paramount parks which apparently didn't actually make money but just served as an outlet for Paramount's media properties - it seems that the Busch parks actually are a viable source of bottom line income.