The encyclopedia · Finance & Accounting · Financial decision · 2013–2018
Wet'n'Wild Sydney cost $130M to build — it sold for $40M five years later
Village Roadshow's A$125–130M Wet'n'Wild Sydney opened in 2013, kept disappointing, and was sold to Parques Reunidos for A$40M in 2018.
Wet'n'Wild Sydney · Village Roadshow · 2018-07
What happened
Village Roadshow — operator of Wet'n'Wild Gold Coast — opened Wet'n'Wild Sydney in 2013, spending more than A$125–130 million on what was meant to be a second engine for its theme park division. Instead the park was plagued by design, capacity and operational problems from day one.
Attendance kept falling: 173,000 visitors in the first half of FY2018 against 235,000 in the same period of 2016 — a period that was itself down 10.4 percent on the year before. The park posted an A$5 million pre-tax loss for the half. CFO Julie Raffe called the results 'incredibly disappointing', and co-CEO Graham Burke admitted management 'dropped the ball' by running September-to-April seasons longer than the weather could support.
On 29 June 2018 Village Roadshow signed the sale of the park to Spain's Parques Reunidos for A$40 million plus revenue-linked earn-outs — roughly a third of what it cost to build — completed on 3 October 2018, with proceeds earmarked to cut the group's debt.
Why it happened
- Design, capacity and operational problems dated from opening day and attendance fell every measured period.
- Seasons ran too long for the climate, booking loss-making weeks at both ends of the calendar.
- After the 2016 Dreamworld incident, local appetite for tall waterslides cooled.
The lesson
Wet'n'Wild Sydney cost over A$125M and never earned its keep: falling attendance, an A$5M half-year loss, and a sale for A$40M five years after opening — a third of build cost.
Aftermath
Parques Reunidos kept the park open as its first Australian asset.
Sources
- Parkz, 2 July 2018 — Village Roadshow sells Wet'n'Wild Sydney to Parques Reunidos (sale price $40M plus variable compensation based on revenue to 30 June 2020; opened 2013; construction cost over $125–130M; park 'plagued by design, capacity and operational problems since day one'; asset shareholders believed should be sold; proceeds to reduce Village Roadshow debt; Parques Reunidos' first Australian asset)
- AusLeisure — Village Roadshow reveals 'incredibly disappointing' results for Wet'n'Wild Sydney (FY2018 first half attendance 173,000 vs 235,000 in the same period of 2016, which was itself a 10.4% fall; $5M loss before tax for the half; CFO Julie Raffe: 'incredibly disappointing. It's an underperforming asset'; co-CEO Graham Burke: management 'dropped the ball' running September-to-April seasons too long; Dreamworld reaction and weather cited as factors)
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