United Parks (PRKS) and SeaWorld: Hawkins Entrekin on Yet Another Value Podcast

On Yet Another Value Podcast, host Andrew Walker brings back real-estate specialist Hawkins Entrekin to present his thesis on United Parks (PRKS), the company that owns SeaWorld and Busch Gardens. Walker notes this setup checks many of his favorite boxes: leveraged capital structure, aggressive buybacks, irreplaceable hard assets, and concentrated hedge fund ownership.

Entrekin characterizes United Parks as a hybrid between a real-estate deal and an operating business, with theme parks functioning much like hotels on valuable land. He argues that, as of the July 2026 recording, PRKS offers both an unusually high cash yield and a potential short-squeeze “kicker” due to constrained float.

Walker repeatedly reminds listeners that nothing discussed is investment advice and emphasizes that his role is to explore Entrekin’s argument, not endorse it. Both highlight that the stock is also covered in detail in a long-form writeup on Entrekin’s Valite platform, which Walker links in the show notes for investors who want to dig deeper into the model and underlying assumptions.

Entrekin’s central claim is that United Parks (PRKS), which operates the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks, is mispriced relative to its cash generation and asset base. He says the company controls “basically five major assets and a couple little minor parks” with strong brand recognition and tangible real estate value.

From a real-estate lens, he treats the parks like income properties: he applies a hotel-style NOI approach, assuming roughly a 6% capex reserve and arriving at what he calls an ~11.75% implied yield on that basis. On a simpler unlevered free-cash-flow-after-capex view, he says the yield is “a little over an 8%” at the prevailing stock price in mid‑2026, which he describes as extraordinarily high for a hard-asset business.

Layered on top of this, Entrekin highlights the ownership structure and short interest. He states that a private equity–style group, Hill Path Capital, owns roughly two-thirds of the stock, and that once you adjust for passive funds, effective short interest has at times sat in the “mid‑80s” percent of the true float. In his view, that creates the potential for an “80%ish effective” short-squeeze scenario if operating results positively surprise, especially around seasonally important quarters.

To justify his bullish angle, Entrekin leans heavily on cash yields and real-estate analogies rather than on fast growth. He cites past EBITDA in the rough range of the “700 million” area in one recent year dropping to around “600 million” in a later year and says he is underwriting a slight further decline to be conservative. Even on those softer assumptions, he still gets to an unlevered cash yield above 8% after capex.

He compares that with private-market multifamily real estate, which he says is trading at true unlevered cash yields in the “upper threes, fourish percent” range, and stresses that theme parks are less stable but still appealing relative to that spread. He expects United Parks to be a “GDP-ish grower” rather than a secular decliner, arguing that leisure demand and ticket pricing tend to trend with economic growth.

Entrekin also points to capital-allocation behavior: he believes management, heavily influenced by the controlling shareholder, is pushing “100% of free cash flow” into share repurchases. He argues that, if buybacks continue at similar levels and NOI grows even at only about 1.5% annually, the implied cap rate for remaining shareholders could approach the mid-teens within roughly four years, all else equal. Walker stresses that this is Entrekin’s model, not a forecast he is endorsing.

Walker presses Entrekin on a key objection: EBITDA has fallen roughly from the “730” area in one recent year to about “600” in a later year despite inflation, and another operator, Six Flags, has also reported softness. Walker had assumed theme parks would be at least somewhat recession-resistant, so he asks why profits are down so meaningfully several years past the COVID boom.

Entrekin’s main explanation is supply, not structural demand erosion. He argues the big swing factor has been the opening of Universal’s Epic Universe resort in Orlando, which he calls a “huge asset” with a roughly “seven billion dollar investment,” nearly equal to what he describes as the entire enterprise value of United Parks. In his view, that is a once-in-a-generation new park that siphoned national destination demand, particularly from SeaWorld Orlando.

He explicitly downplays management’s frequent weather explanations, calling those unsatisfying. Walker reinforces this skepticism by noting that management has blamed weather in “15 of the past 16 quarters” and in “25 of the past 40” quarters he reviewed, while crediting weather positively only once. Both suggest this pattern makes weather a weak primary story for the earnings decline, while Entrekin maintains Epic Universe is the more logical culprit and a one-time shock rather than an ongoing structural headwind.

Walker devotes a substantial part of the conversation to what could go wrong, emphasizing that the structure and story resemble past situations that “went bad” when financial engineering overshadowed business health. He worries that with a controlling shareholder, high leverage, and heavy buybacks, management could end up running the parks for near‑term financial metrics rather than for long‑term operational vitality.

He draws a parallel to Six Flags under previous strategies, where he recalls aggressive pricing and financial optimization eventually triggering customer backlash and a painful reset. In PRKS, he points to management’s focus on valuation slides in investor decks, repeated weather excuses, and continued talk of “room for pricing” even as EBITDA falls from the “700” area to “600.” His fear is a future scenario where the board must admit missteps and bring in new leadership after under-investing in the guest experience.

Entrekin responds that he sees limited evidence of asset stripping so far and argues these parks are hard assets that are relatively resistant to “complete bozo” management. He points to capex running in the mid‑teens percent of revenue, roughly in line with pre‑COVID averages, as a sign they are still reinvesting in new attractions rather than milking the base. He suggests the main risk is more muted growth or continued competitive pressure rather than outright asset impairment, but agrees investors should watch capex levels and customer metrics closely.

Looking ahead, Entrekin highlights several forward-looking elements that he thinks will determine whether his PRKS thesis plays out. On the near term, he focuses on upcoming quarters, especially Q2, as potential inflection points: if the company “overperforms” relative to low expectations after a seasonally small, soft Q1, he believes the very high effective short interest could amplify the move via a squeeze.

He also watches pass sales closely, noting that management has said passes, which represent around “40% of traffic,” were up roughly “12% year-over-year” in a recent quarter. In his view, strong pass trends are hard to reconcile with a thesis of severe ongoing demand deterioration and may indicate underlying health that is not obvious from headline attendance alone.

On longer horizons, Entrekin mentions several structural levers. He sees potential, though not near-term, value in monetizing roughly “40 acres” of developable land adjacent to each park via joint ventures for hotels or other uses, which could both raise cash and drive incremental attendance. He is skeptical that a simple public OpCo/PropCo split would unlock much value at current cap rates and rent coverage requirements, but thinks a private buyer could eventually use that structure to harvest tax efficiencies. Finally, both he and Walker reference the broader idea that if AI-driven productivity increases leisure time and wealth, demand for out-of-home experiences like theme parks could benefit, though they frame this as a macro tailwind rather than a core part of the model.