Arle’s Parques Reunidos picks up Miami Seaquarium

The purchase was funded through cash reserves of its US business Palace Entertainment, an operator of 38 parks across the US.

Previous funding
Parques Reunidos has a long history of private equity ownership having first been backed by a consortium of investors comprising Apax Partners, Baird Capital, Cinven and Permira in May 1994. The consortium listed the company in Spain in May 1999.

In December 2003, Advent International acquired the company, investing €134m of equity in a take-private worth €172.8m in total. The deal was Spain's first ever private equity-backed public-to-private transaction.

Arle purchased Parques Reunidos in February 2007 (when Arle was known as Candover), in a deal worth €930m. Since Arle's acquisition, the company has completed several bolt-on deals, including Noah's Ark in the US, District Coast Aquarium, The Blackpool Zoo and The Oceanarium Bournemouth in the UK, and Dutch theme park Slagharen.

Company
Miami Seaquarium is a marine-life park open all year round. It puts on live shows, presentations and marine-life exhibits.

Parques Reunidos is a global leisure park operator, with 69 operations including theme parks, animal parks, water parks and marine-life parks.

People
Javier Abad is partner at Arle. Yann Caillère is CEO of Parques Reunidos. Fernando Eiroa is Palace Entertainment's president and CEO.

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• Topics
• Southern Europe
• Portfolio management
• Arle Capital Partners
• Spain