SeaWorld C.E.O. Hints at Overseas Ambitions

James D. Atchison was a lowly parking lot attendant when he started working at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Fla., nearly three decades ago. Today, he is the chief executive and president of the theme park’s operator, SeaWorld Entertainment, which is now a publicly traded company.

SeaWorld had a promising debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, its stock opening at $30.56 a share, 13 percent above the initial public offering price. The company priced its shares at $27 each in the I.P.O. Thursday evening, raising $702 million and achieving a valuation of $2.5 billion.

The majority of the proceeds from the deal went to the Blackstone Group, which bought the company for $2.3 billion in 2009 and retains control. SeaWorld is using its share of the money to reduce its debt, and, in general, to help it achieve its corporate goals.

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Atchison gave some hints as to what those plans might be. Currently, SeaWorld Entertainment operates 11 theme parks in the United States, including SeaWorld and Busch Gardens, without a presence overseas.

“We could take our Shamu show in Orlando and probably show it in Malaysia or Abu Dhabi or Dubai,” Mr. Atchison said. “There’s a lot of interest in our brands from overseas.”

He cautioned that there is no “imminent announcement” along these lines.

Though building new theme parks requires capital, Mr. Atchison suggested that such projects could be undertaken in partnership with big investors, such as a sovereign wealth fund, which might add hotels or other structures to the development.

“If you look at these development opportunities, they’re often in connection with other real estate plays,” he explained. “A lot of the development opportunities we have are actually capital-light.”

Before going public, SeaWorld fielded some interest from possible buyers, Mr. Atchison said. Though he declined to go into detail, Mr. Atchison said none of the offers “got our focus off of this transaction,” the initial public offering.

In the near term, SeaWorld hopes to increase its revenue by attracting more visitors to its existing parks. It’s doing that in part by adding new attractions, like a narrative-driven ride called “Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin” in its Orlando, Fla., SeaWorld park. That experience will feature a new animated penguin character, Puck.

During the I.P.O. roadshow, as the company pitched prospective investors, it became clear that one of SeaWorld’s primary strengths was its well-known brands, Mr. Atchison said.

“Every person I spoke with had some memory or some experience at a park,” Mr. Atchison said.

Under Blackstone’s ownership, the company has been able to take advantage of those brands in ways that might not have been possible with the previous owner, the giant beer maker Anheuser-Busch InBev, according to Mr. Atchison, who was president and chief operating officer of the division before Blackstone bought it.

For instance, the company introduced a new television show on ABC last year, highlighting its work rescuing injured animals. With Anheuser-Busch InBev executives focused mostly on beer, such projects “would have been difficult” in the past, Mr. Atchison said.

Conveying its message to a wide audience will be particularly important for SeaWorld this summer, when a new documentary, “Blackfish,” about the death of a trainer at the Orlando theme park, is scheduled to be released.

The company came under widespread criticism after the incident in 2010, when a trainer was killed by an Orca whale in full view of visitors.

“I would argue passionately that we have the best care and the best animal practices on this planet,” Mr. Atchison said.

“There’s always going to be folks on the other side of the argument, animal rights activists and so forth,” he added. “We have weathered storms like that before. It’s not a new problem for us.”

For Mr. Atchison, 47, a graduate of the University of South Florida, who operated rides and emptied trash cans before rising to become a general manager of SeaWorld Orlando and then a company executive, being at the New York Stock Exchange was an exciting experience.

The chief executive was joined at the exchange by some of the company’s most important assets: an otter, a lemur and a group of penguins, who did an admirable job posing for the cameras.

“They were a big hit,” Mr. Atchison said. “We have 67,000 animals in our collection, so we were able to spare a few for today.”