SeaWorld Entertainment CEO Joel Manby has stepped down after ultimately failing to arrest a slide in visitor numbers and falling revenue.
Chief parks operations officer, John Reilly, has been named in his place as acting CEO while a permanent successor is sought.
Manby’s departure was hastened by a disappointing performance as it posted a fourth quarter net loss of 20.7 million and a loss of $202.4 million for 2017.
Annual revenues in 2017 were down 6% to $1.26 billion and park attendance was down 5,5%.
The expected turnaround has failed to materialize since the fallout from the 2013 documentary ‘Blackfish.’
Meanwhile recent court documents showed the previous SeaWorld CEO pleaded the Fifth in a civil lawsuit claiming the theme park operator misled investors over ‘Blackfish.’
Jim Atchison, who stood down in 2015 as CEO, is refusing to answer questions brought by a group of investors and invoked the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Atchison was accused of making ‘suspicious’ sales of his personal SeaWorld shares while publicly denying the full scale of the impact to the business.
The Justice Department is also conducting a criminal fraud investigation.
