Ardent Leisure shareholders grill board over Dreamworld tragedy insurance, executive resignations

DREAMWORLD’s parent company Ardent has been grilled by shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting and they wanted to know — was the park insured?

DREAMWORLD’S parent company Ardent Leisure was insured for the tragedy that claimed four lives last year — but they can’t tell shareholders whether or not the policies will pay out.

At today’s annual general meeting in Sydney, the new-look board took a grilling from investors over the company’s revolving executive door, which has seen two group CEOs and two chairmen leave Ardent in the past year.

The CEO of the bowling and entertainment division has also resigned, as has the CEO of the US-based Main Event business.

Ardent Leisure Group’s Gary Weiss. Picture Chris Pavlich

Five of the US businesses were battered by Hurricane Harvey in August, and were covered by insurance for costs and loss of earnings — however shareholders remain in the dark as to whether they are similarly covered for the Australian disaster.

Chairman Gary Weiss could not answer.

“There are levels of insurance cover in place but, obviously it’s a highly sensitive issue and I’m not at liberty to elaborate further,” he said.

A coronial inquest is yet to be scheduled into the deaths of Roozi Araghi, Kate Goodchild, Luke Dorsett and Cindy Low on the Thunder River Rapids ride last October.

Dr Weiss said the board’s “thoughts and condolences remain with those affected by this incident”.

Dr Weiss talks to shareholders. Picture Chris Pavlich for The Australian

Shareholders at the AGM heard the company planned to reinvest in Dreamworld and WhiteWater World after theme parks revenue fell by $37 million to $71 million and earnings by a similar amount, resulting in a loss for the year of $3.4 million.

Dr Weiss said the financial results for 2017 were “clearly disappointing”, saying they had been impacted by the closure of Dreamworld for six weeks; underperformance of the company’s US-based Main Event; and flat trading for its bowling and entertainment division.

WHAT CAN SAVE DREAMWORLD NOW?

Acting CEO Geoff Richardson, who stepped in after the resignation of Simon Kelly two weeks ago, said the parks had stopped losing money.

Dreamworld is more than breaking even. Picture: Natalie Wolfe

“The theme parks business is currently trading above break-even and we expect a positive contribution over the remainder of FY18,” he said.

“Despite the challenging year, guest satisfaction and feedback at Dreamworld continue to be excellent and we look forward to a strong holiday period and hopefully a boost from the 2018 Commonwealth Games to be held on the Gold Coast.”

Dreamworld continues to attract crowds Picture: Natalie Wolfe

Dr Weiss said job cuts at theme parks — which employ close to 1000 people on the Gold Coast — were not on the agenda.

“That’s not part of our plans moving forward — to the contrary, we’re looking at significant reinvestment back into the park and hopefully that creates more job opportunities for the local community,” he said.

“We recognise that Dreamworld occupies a very significant place in the Gold Coast community, indeed in the wider Queensland community, and we’re very determined to reinvest and to build it back to the iconic status that it occupies.”

Big crowds out the front of Dreamworld. (Photo by Jono Searle/Getty Images)

The release of the company’s half-year results in February will reveal whether the plans have started to work.

Dr Weiss said he hoped to have better results to report next year, but said there were no guarantees.

“You can’t put time frames on this,” he said.

“All I can tell you is we are, as a board, very committed.”