By PETER LATTMAN and DAVID KESMODEL
Shamu, meet your new boss: Stephen Schwarzman.

Blackstone Group LP, the New York private-equity firm headed by Mr. Schwarzman, is nearing a roughly $2.5 billion to $3 billion acquisition of Anheuser-Busch InBev NV’s theme parks, according to people familiar with the situation.

The sale of the Busch Entertainment unit, which owns the Sea World and Busch Gardens parks, has long been expected as part of InBev’s plans to pay for its 2008 acquisition of Anheuser Busch.

The deal could be announced as soon as next week but might still fall apart, the people familiar with the matter warned. An Anheuser-Busch InBev spokeswoman declined to comment.

Associated Press
A killer whale and worker performing at Sea World in San Diego.
If completed, the purchase would add to Blackstone’s theme-park holdings. The New York-based buyout shop already controls Merlin Entertainment Group, the owner of Madame Tussauds wax museums and Legoland. It also holds a 50% stake in Universal Orlando theme parks.

Blackstone would be acquiring 10 amusement parks located throughout the U.S., from Sea World in Orlando, Fla., to Sesame Place in Langhorne, Pa. Among its more famous attractions is Shamu, Sea World’s trademark Orca whale.

In 2007, the Busch Entertainment division posted $162.9 million in net income on $1.3 billion in sales. Under InBev, the company no longer breaks out financial results from the unit. The theme parks employed about 10,300 temporary workers on average each month in 2008, according to a recent Anheuser-Busch InBev regulatory filing.

A takeover would be the largest private-equity deal of 2009 and one of the largest since the financial crisis began more than two years ago. The tight credit markets have largely shut the buyout business since then, though there has been some recent activity. Blackstone, for instance, struck a deal last month to sell its Orangina Schweppes Group beverage business to Japan’s Suntory Holdings for $3.8 billion.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest beer maker by sales, has already unloaded a number of assets to pare down the debt load needed by InBev to purchase Anheuser.

Those moves include the sale this week of metal can and lid manufacturing plants to Ball Corp. for $577 million and the sale of Oriental Brewery to KKR & Co. for $1.8 billion. Other properties on the block include the company’s operations in Central and Eastern Europe.

A sale of the theme parks would further unravel the Busch family legacy at America’s largest beer maker. Longtime Anheuser-Busch Chief Executive Officer August Busch III expanded the theme-park business through acquisitions, and viewed the division as a valuable tool for the brewer to gain insight into consumer behavior.

A potential deal is already catching the notice of some. Earlier this week, in anticipation of a possible transaction, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, sent a letter to Blackstone President Hamilton James “urging him to transfer all the animals at SeaWorld to coastal sanctuaries.”

A Blackstone spokesman declined to comment on the letter.

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