Six Flags sell parks in the Us and Euorpe!!

[Bob O]

Six Flags Announces Agreements in Principle

Wednesday March 10, 8:00 AM EST

NEW YORK, Mar 10, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Six Flags, Inc. (NYSE: PKS and PKS-B)

-- Sale of Six Flags Worlds of Adventure

-- Sale of European Division


Six Flags, Inc. (NYSE: PKS and PKS-B) announced today that it had reached an agreement in principle for the sale of Six Flags Worlds of Adventure, located near Cleveland, Ohio, to Cedar Fair, L.P. The transaction contemplates a sale of substantially all of the assets of the park, including the adjacent hotel and campground, for a cash purchase price of U.S. $145 million. Six Flags will retain ownership of all of the marine and land animals currently located at the park.

Commenting on the Cleveland transaction, Kieran E. Burke, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Six Flags, stated "This transaction offers a unique opportunity for us. Cleveland has represented our most difficult market. While there is an opportunity for significant improvement in park performance over time, the improvement would take several years and a meaningful capital investment. Cedar Fair has the ability to take advantage of marketing and operational synergies with its highly-regarded Cedar Point park to exploit this opportunity more quickly and efficiently than we could."

In addition, Six Flags announced that it had reached an agreement in principle to sell its European division to a private investment firm for a purchase price of U.S. $200 million. The transaction will not include the Company's interests in Warner Bros. Movie World Madrid.

Mr. Burke stated, "While we continue to believe that there are potential internal and external growth opportunities in Europe, the sale of our European operations will enable us to focus our management and capital resources more completely on our North American operations.

"While we will incur a book loss in the first quarter of 2004 on the sale of these assets of approximately $70 million in the case of Cleveland and approximately $220 million in the case of Europe, these transactions are very positive for us," continued Mr. Burke. "Taken together, they will enable us to accelerate our planned de-leveraging. We expect to utilize the proceeds of the sales primarily to reduce outstanding indebtedness, as well as to fund investments in our other parks. We do not expect any additional park dispositions to occur. Moreover, based upon the expected future cash flows from other parks, there is no impairment in the carrying value of the balance of our assets."

Both transactions are subject to the negotiation and execution of definitive agreements and other conditions, including the respective buyers' completion of due diligence, a financing condition, and receipt of necessary regulatory and third party approvals. There can be no assurance that either or both transactions will be completed.


Will this help or hurt Cedar Fair or Six Flags??? Any affect at all on disney??

 

[hopemax]

There's also a article on Motley fool about it.

http://biz.yahoo.com/fool/040310/1078931040_2.html

This should put to rest the idea that Disney's park assets could be sold to Six Flags in the event of a Comcast takeover. With Six Flag's debt load they couldn't afford to keep all their existing parks, let alone come up with the $15 Billion it would take to buy Disney's. Given enough time I wouldn't be surprised if Cedar Fair will buy Six Flags someday, and become the sole king of the regional park operators.

And I think Disney is darn lucky that Cedar Point is in Ohio and can't operate year round. WoA is about an hour away from Cedar Point, while not as close as the Disney parks, if they can turn WoA into a draw like Cedar Point, they'll have a nice little 3-day weekend destination complex.

 

[KMovies]

Cedar Fair does have a park in Disney territory ... that is Knott's Berry Farm.

I bet though that Cedar Fair would be very slow, only buying one or two parks at a time. Not sure if they would ever want to buy all the Six Flag parks. Seems that every move that Cedar Fair makes is well thought out.

 

[HauntedMansionFan]

Good the less Sux Flags we have the better.

 

[barbeml]

Now if only someone would buy Gang Adventure here in NJ and clean it up...

 

[BRERALEX]

Gang Adventure

yeah you do have to worry about which colors to wear at hangme adventure.

Living in Jersey all my life i went for the first time when i was about 17 after having been to disney like 12 or 15 times and WOW...scary..i still have nightmares

They do have some great coasters but without the theme theres like no point to me.

ever gone on the houdini ride....like...whoooooah.

The Batman Ride has some theming which helps the thrill, Great American Scream Machine is cool and the new one they put in like two years ago is incredible (sad i cant even remember the name) but everything surrounding the rides is terrible.

 

[HauntedMansionFan]

Originally posted by BRERALEX
The Batman Ride has some theming which helps the thrill, Great American Scream Machine is cool and the new one they put in like two years ago is incredible (sad i cant even remember the name) but everything surrounding the rides is terrible.

Nitro? Is that the one you were thinking of? I went to Sux Flags NJ about 6 years ago and will never go back, and I went to Sux Flags New England in the summer of 2000 and will never go back.

 

[BRERALEX]

Nitro is a hell of an experience.I had a season pass to Disney and Six Flags and went to Disney more so im no fan of six flags. nitro is a crazy ride for anyone thats a rollercoaster experince. No harness over your shoulders no seatbelt, just the bar that comes up by your crotch, nothing holding the top of your body back its crazy.

 

[barbeml]

Sadly, when Great Adventure opened in the early 70s (owned by Warner LeRoy at the start) it was a beautiful family park. The food was always a bit pricey, but it was a very nice place for kids of all ages to spend a day. I have nice memories of the early days.

It has really devolved into a pit.

 

[mikifan]

We have had problems at World of Adventures before, so never returned. The problems seem to be with lack of workers on the rides, making the wait times very long and workers who were poorly trained and not motivated or concerned. Cedar Point should make a difference here.

Jeff

 

[kabaird]

I agree...it's good that Six Flags sold the Geauga Lake property to Cedar Fair. The service was subpar at best and while they kept increaseing season pass prices there was no upkeep of the property, only additions of new rides.

As a former employee of Sea World I was happy to hear that Six Flags picked up the Ohio location (can't help it, I loved working there-I wanted to see it kept alive). But after visiting it, there was no significant improvements as well as an overall look of disrepair, sloppy. It will be better for the animals to be in a different location where they are looked upon as a major attraction (since they can't be freed) as opposed as a group of pass through attractions.

I can only hope that Cedar Fair will take a genuine interest in the property and return Geauga Lake to some of it's former charm. Growing up in the area, it was a nice little place to visit a couple of times a year.

Thanks for reading my two cents.

 

[Cris]

wow this comes as a real surprise. Growing up in Ohio I visited both parks (sea world & geuga lake) It was funny when they turned into worlds of adventure, one side was so nice and the other side was a dump. I really hope Cedar Fair puts some of the operation support they have at Cedar Point. They will have to put a lot of work into it to get up to par.

 

[mikifan]

I have been reading news releases that look as if some things will be done this year, but it will take 2-3 years before Cedar Point really has a fit. It did mention that workers pride in the park will be tops on the list, thankfully!

Jeff

 

[betterlatethannever]

Originally posted by mikifan
We have had problems at World of Adventures before, so never returned. The problems seem to be with lack of workers on the rides, making the wait times very long and workers who were poorly trained and not motivated or concerned. Cedar Point should make a difference here.

Jeff

In the local paper it was mentioned that Cedar Point hires 5,000 seasonal employees, whereas Six Flags World Adventure hires only 3,000 sealson employees.

since the parks are similar in size and number of rides, this difference is very significant.

Ed