Dreamworld parent company Ardent Leisure logs $88.6 million loss, driven by theme parks

DREAMWORLD parent company Ardent Leisure has posted an eye-watering multimillion-dollar loss for the past financial year — even higher than last year’s $62.6 million cruelling. Here’s why.

Lower visitation continues to bite Dreamworld and its parent company. Picture: NIGEL HALLETT

DREAMWORLD parent company Ardent Leisure has posted an eye-watering $88.6 million loss for the past financial year — $26 million higher than last year’s $62.6 million cruelling.

The company’s theme parks division, consisting of Dreamworld, WhiteWater World and SkyPoint, was the major driver of the results, with that division alone recording a loss in earnings of $91.1 million, an improvement of $7.3 million compared to the EBITDA loss of $98.4 million in the prior year.

The comparisons take into account a change in the company’s reporting methods.

The theme parks reported revenue of $69.9 million, down 1.4 per cent for the same time last year, as the business continued to be impacted by the slow recovery post the Thunder River Rapids tragedy almost two years ago.

The company hopes new attractions - including an unspecified water park expansion and a new “dark ride” to replace the long-defunct Eureka Mountain Mine Ride.

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Flowers at a memorial out the front of Dreamworld on November 9, 2016. Pic: Getty Images

The improved year-on-year earnings were largely driven by the valuation loss and impairments of $79.6 million relating to Dreamworld and SkyPoint being lower than the prior year valuation loss of $89.5 million relating to Dreamworld.

The gains were partially offset by “higher Dreamworld incident related expenses”, which the company said amounted to $6.2 million in the current year compared to $5.4 million in the prior year.

Excluding these valuation loss, impairment and Dreamworld incident related expenses, earnings for the division were approximately $1.4 million lower than prior year.

The company, which has suffered enormous upheaval at an executive level, pointed to its management restructure at Dreamworld and investment in new attractions like the DreamWorks Trolls Village, soon-to-open iRide, and a planned water park expansion as initiatives to drive more visitation and spending.

Ardent will pay a 6.5c dividend to shareholders on August 31.

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Ardent Leisure chairman Gary Weiss. Pic: Adam Head

The company’s overall revenue was impacted by its shedding of business including its marinas and bowling and entertainment divisions, but revenue across its continuing businesses was up 16.1 per cent on the previous year, taking into account the change in the company’s reporting methods.

Its pro-forma revenue of $555.1 million in FY18 declined by $29.8 million compared to $584.9 million last year due to reduced revenue of $89.5 million for the discontinued businesses.

Ardent’s US-based Main Event division was its success story, accounting for more than 80 per cent of the year’s revenue and growing at 23.5 per cent in US dollar terms.