Shares ride rollercoaster for theme park owners

RIVAL theme park operators Village Roadshow and Ardent Leisure found themselves at opposite ends of the share price rollercoaster yesterday.

While Ardent, which owns Dreamworld, saw its share price rise by 3¢ to $2.06 after declaring it would pay a 6.5¢ cent dividend to shareholders at the end of August, Village saw its stock plummet 14.45 per cent, or 31.5¢, to $1.865.

The sharp fall came after the company emerged from a trading halt after launching a $51 million capital raising to cut debt.

Village, which operates Sea World and Movie World among other theme parks on the Gold Coast, said yesterday that the institutional part of the offer had raised $35.7 million, with shareholders chipping in $20.9 million.

The retail offer, which will open next Tuesday, aims to raise a further $15.7 million.

Village has said the $51 million will be used — together with the proceeds of the sale of Wet’n’Wild Sydney — to reduce the company’s mountain of debt, which stands at $425 million.

Analysts, including Citi and Macquarie, have neutral ratings in place for Village stock, citing concerns over the ongoing negative publicity from the tragedy at Dreamworld in October, 2016.

In a trading update earlier this week Village said it expects to book total full-year impairments of $166 million due to factors including lower earnings at its Gold Coast parks and an accounting hit from the sale and leaseback of land at Oxenford.

Village has flagged $9 million of restructuring costs and expects a full-year loss, excluding significant items, of between $6 million and $10 million.

Both Ardent and Village have struggled in the wake of the tragedy at Dreamworld in October, 2016, which claimed four lives.