Own a Stake in Shamu Starting Friday

Now children old and young will be able to own a piece of Shamu. SeaWorld, which will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker, SEAS, opens to the public on Friday. Much like Disney DIS, this will surely be the next great, “buy a share of stock for your child” gift, but Wall Street is clearly excited about it too.

SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc. is owned by Blackstone BX. The company purchased SeaWorld when it made a deal with Anheuser-Busch InBev BUD to purchase its amusement park business for $2.7 billion.

Demand appears to be high for the stock. Not only did it price at the top of the $24 to $27 range, on Thursday, Blackstone upped the size of the offering from 20 million to 26 million shares. The company plans to raise $702 million from the offering.

Friday should be quite the payday for Blackstone. Of the $2.7 billion paid to Anheuser-Busch InBev, about $1 billion is tied up in SeaWorld. The value of Blackstone’s stake, along with the cash received from the IPO should value it a $2.2 billion—a 120 percent gain for the company.

According to Bloomberg, SeaWorld will have $1.6 billion in long-term debt after it uses the IPO capital to repay its creditors. The company lists in its prospectus about $191.7 million in capital expenditures through December and cash flow of $111.8 million.

The filing shows that much of the capital expenditures went towards animal safety measures for its 67,000 animals along with the build out future attractions. The company states that these expenses were higher than usual for 2011 and 2012. SeaWorld plans to reduce these charges to 10 percent of total revenue beginning in 2014.

SeaWorld’s earnings rose to $77.4 million in 2012, according to the New York Times. That’s a 305 percent increase year over year. Admission revenue per capita was up 3.9 percent and in-park spending, up 3.3 percent.

Goldman Sachs GS and JPMorgan JPM are the lead underwriters for the offering.

SeaWorld hopes to have the same type of success that one IPO had earlier in the week. Grocery store chain Fairway Group Holdings FWIM was the fourth strongest IPO of 2013 after rising more than 34 percent on Wednesday. The company sold 13.7 shares at $13 that raised $177 million. The proceeds will allow for aggressive expansion. At the end of the day, the company was worth about $716 million.