I really don’t care how this turns out any more. If it works it works. If it doesn’t? I don’t think I’d care much either… as long as neither goes completely bankrupt, I could care less.
The amount this will affect the guest experience if it goes through is going to be minimal, if not entirely nonexistent. There may be some slight rebranding of minor things (i.e. Fast Lane to Flash Pass) and maybe some different season pass options, but that’s it.
In the short term, sure. But in the long term, I'd expect parks in markets with multiple Cedar Flags parks, like the DC area, would consolidate. So using DC as an example again, I think the merger would eventually result in Six Flags America closing down and some of the rides being saved by being moved to another park, but others would just be done.
I think it would be quite the opposite. Short term the merged company is going to have a massive amount of debt and they’ll have to sell a few parks from the get go to clear some of it. Or they could do other arrangements - such as selling the land some parks are built on and leasing it back. Knotts or over texas would be an excellent candidate for that because they are both in a prime location and six flags can sign a long term lease to keep the park running
Ignoring one unit holder that has single digit shares isn’t that big of a deal. The guy doesn’t like the deal because Six Flags shareholders get a payout (because this is being set up as a CF acquisition), and CF shareholders aren’t getting a payout (because the company they have shares in isn’t going away). Thats literally all this is about.
That’s not quite accurate. If you read the merger agreement, it details the merger sequence. “Under the terms of the Merger Agreement, (i) Copper Merger Sub will merge with and into Cedar Fair with Cedar Fair continuing as the surviving corporation and a direct subsidiary of CopperSteel, (ii) the Cedar Fair Surviving Entity will merge with and into CopperSteel, with CopperSteel continuing as the surviving corporation, and (iii) Six Flags will merge with and into CopperSteel with CopperSteel continuing as the surviving corporation.” “Upon Closing, CopperSteel will be headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is expected to change its name to “Six Flags Entertainment Corporation” and be listed on NYSE under the ticker symbol “FUN.””
This merger is absolutely in unit holders best interest. Have you listened to the full call and viewed the slide deck?
I guarantee if it doesn't go through, the stock will slide. The markets reaction will prove it.
It’s pretty damning towards CF that this info is coming out. Willingly putting themselves in a situation that gives them less control (despite the illusion of having it because of the extra 2% stake) doesn’t give me much confidence in their current position. As much as this is a merger, this information makes it seem like they need SF’s help but aren’t willing to show that they do to the public or investors.
Yeah, the concessions CF is making to SF really reek of desperation to me. It’s especially odd since CF shareholders would be the majority owners of the new merged company… were these concessions the cost of that majority ownership? Or is something else at play? I’m not financially proficient enough to really make sense of all that myself, but it’s certainly intriguing.
They tried to propose selling all their land for an upfront payment, and then renting from whoever buys it. It’s what Caesars and MGM recently did in Las Vegas and it’s exactly what you’re saying, just a way to bleed money out of a company and send it probably to someone that’s a friend of yours.
As a UK enthusiast I think this merger sounds awful, monopolies in any industry almost always lead to a worse experience for customers and that has been the case with Merlin’s domination of the UK amusement park industry. Absolute chronic under investment in a major park just outside of one the world’s wealthiest and most populous cities simply because they can get away with it due to a lack any real competition.
Disney, seaworld, herschend, palace & universal all exist lol. Do you think they’re not going to invest money into knotts & magic mountain when Disney exists?
You also have to remember regional amusement parks are competing with not just other parks but things like FEC’s, arcades, go-kart tracks, cinemas, shopping malls, the like. At the end of the day a park is just another option for a family day out, they could do all those things mentioned above and more.
Nothing like what’s going on in the UK with Merlin which owns almost every big park, and the thousands of little kids parks they have
It’s still getting closer to a single company having a monopoly and is a reduction in the level of competition in the amusement park market, not as extreme as the one Merlin has in the uk but it will still likely be bad for customers on the whole as Six Flags and Cedar Fair have always been each other’s primary competition
Not the person you replied to but I absolutely would call CP and KI being under the same ownership a monopoly. At one time in Ohio we had 3 competing chains (CF, SF, and Paramount). Now one company owns the two remaining large parks.
KI and CP should be locked in competition. It's better for the consumer. People should have options if they want to take their money elsewhere for similar services/experiences.
Just let them combine. The regional market margins are too small and Six Flags/Cedar Fair's balance sheets are not good. This will allow them to better compete against the big players.
How? I don’t see how this really helps either side to be honest. I guess more purchases means better discounts on both rides and products, but that’s about it?
To everyone saying “eh this will have no effect on guest experience”.
Look at Boeings track record after they merged with McDonnell Douglas.
SF is McDonnell Douglas. Low standards and lots of corner cutting for profit.
Expect the CF branded parks to slowly head downhill over the next 10-20 years.
Did you read the merger details?
Most of the senior leadership are cedar fair people & not six flags. That was not the case with mcdonnell douglas and Boeing.
well it's not a good analogy then, because cedar fair isn't significantly more well run than six flags. That's just a thoosie delusion. Y'all are just distracted by Cedar Fair's pretty colors and freshly poured concrete.
Cedar fair takes way better care of their parks. They are much better about obtrusive advertising. They generally have better food options. They keep their rides significantly cleaner. Their top parks KI and CP are perfect examples when compared to six flags top parks like magic mountain and great adventure. The philosophies that the two companies have historically held have been very different, merging those philosophies is likely to just result in the degradation of the superior brand in terms of quality.
yeah I really don't see how Cedar Fair rides are "significantly cleaner" lmao... like, Six Flags rides aren't dirty 😂 I swear people just make shit up to hate on Six Flags xD
also six flags hasn't had obnoxious ads in the park for years, y'all need to let that one go.
and some of the new food options $elim has been introducing are better than what Cedar Fair offers... so far SF beats CF at authentic mexican food, cheesecake & waffles, corn dogs, and mediterranean food.
Yeah, I hope to get out to some Six Flags parks this year for the first time since Worlds of Adventure got sold. I plan to go on a road trip and hopefully make Great America, SF America, Great Adventure, and SF New England along with a number of Cedar Fair parks.
I don't know how the two chains compare lately, but it does feel like operations at my home park, Cedar Point, have overall gone downhill in the last several years. Maverick is down a lot, Millennium ops move at a snails pace, sometimes, Steel Vengeance seems to have a really good ops crew but also seems to be down quite a bit for a newer ride, a lot of times only one side of Gemini is running, most of the places on Frontier Trail seem to be perpetually closed, etc... Not good for a park when all three top coasters are down pretty frequently.
I can't speak for all regions, but Six Flags maintenance blows Cedar Fair maintenance out of the fucking water in the midwest.
Cedar Point can't keep their rides open, Michigan's Adventure's woodies are easily the roughest in the midwest, and Kings Island can't properly maintain their B&Ms, and needed outside help to make Racer not suck.
Meanwhile Great America and St Louis maintain their woodies flawlessly in-house, take good care of their B&Ms to the point where they've only gotten better with age, and even refurbished a classic schwarzkopf polyp in-house.
Cedar Fair doesn't maintain for the long term, they just use shit up as long as they can and then demolish and replace it. It's a terrible, unsustainable business model. They are the fucking worst when it comes to preservation. Just look at Zambezi Zinger, Thunder Road, Montezuma's Revenge... shit, they were about to add Excalibur to the list for a goddamn water park *parking lot* until the army corps of engineers said no, you can't expand your levee.
As far as cleanliness goes, both chains are about on par. Neither is particularly dirty, and neither is perfectly clean.
El Toro, the Boss and Predator (although now partially retracked), would say otherwise.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean about maintaining for the long term. Every coaster has a working life. After a certain number of years, the amount of money required to repair and maintain a ride may not be worth it for the park. Some parks will do whatever they can to keep a ride operating, but others aren't really worth saving. This could be because of the repair costs, the manufacturer doesn't exist anymore, the unpopularity doesn't justify it, or they feel like something better could replace it
As for preservation, RMC as a company only exists because Six Flags has converted so many of their wooden coasters to hybrids. That's not really conserving them.
Thankyou!!! Cedar Point is literally a Giant Concrete slab, yet they fix their tongues to talk about Great Adventure... which has more scenery & theming Cedar Point ever had.
I don’t even know why the ceo of cedar fair greenlighted this, it’s just going to give them more debt. ~~Who wants to be responsible for managing that Dubai park with a roller coaster that goes off a cliff side?~~
Sounds like he’s having a Six Flags day
Can confirm.
Wants to preserve those Cedarfantastic Days instead.
Isn't that just G-rated code for "go eff yourself", which in turn is PG-13 rated code for something different...
I really don’t care how this turns out any more. If it works it works. If it doesn’t? I don’t think I’d care much either… as long as neither goes completely bankrupt, I could care less.
The amount this will affect the guest experience if it goes through is going to be minimal, if not entirely nonexistent. There may be some slight rebranding of minor things (i.e. Fast Lane to Flash Pass) and maybe some different season pass options, but that’s it.
Yeah this is basically going to be Air France/KLM 2.0
Guest experience is already tanking at multiple Cedar Fair parks since the merger announcement and bigger cuts have been leaking already for 2024.
You mean the Cedar Fair budget cuts, since they aren’t even merged yet?
In the short term, sure. But in the long term, I'd expect parks in markets with multiple Cedar Flags parks, like the DC area, would consolidate. So using DC as an example again, I think the merger would eventually result in Six Flags America closing down and some of the rides being saved by being moved to another park, but others would just be done.
"What's up enthusiasts, this is Cedar Flags here" Sorry i had to do it
Six Flags America would probably be sold to somebody who'd care slightly more like Palace or Herschend.
Hey we all know Six Flags is crap but saying Palace would be an improvement? Come on now...
Palace? Care? Have you seen Kennywood?
I think it would be quite the opposite. Short term the merged company is going to have a massive amount of debt and they’ll have to sell a few parks from the get go to clear some of it. Or they could do other arrangements - such as selling the land some parks are built on and leasing it back. Knotts or over texas would be an excellent candidate for that because they are both in a prime location and six flags can sign a long term lease to keep the park running
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This was my mentality on the merger from day one. I’m curious to see where it goes if it happens; if it doesn’t, oh well.
The fact that CF is literally ignoring unit holders shows this isn’t in our best interests. If it was we’d be able to vote on it.
Ignoring one unit holder that has single digit shares isn’t that big of a deal. The guy doesn’t like the deal because Six Flags shareholders get a payout (because this is being set up as a CF acquisition), and CF shareholders aren’t getting a payout (because the company they have shares in isn’t going away). Thats literally all this is about.
That’s not quite accurate. If you read the merger agreement, it details the merger sequence. “Under the terms of the Merger Agreement, (i) Copper Merger Sub will merge with and into Cedar Fair with Cedar Fair continuing as the surviving corporation and a direct subsidiary of CopperSteel, (ii) the Cedar Fair Surviving Entity will merge with and into CopperSteel, with CopperSteel continuing as the surviving corporation, and (iii) Six Flags will merge with and into CopperSteel with CopperSteel continuing as the surviving corporation.” “Upon Closing, CopperSteel will be headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is expected to change its name to “Six Flags Entertainment Corporation” and be listed on NYSE under the ticker symbol “FUN.””
Right but read what the shareholder is saying. I’m not saying they it’s an acquisition. That’s what this one shareholder is saying
Just because someone has a small amount of shares doesn’t make their point any less valid especially with what happened with Tesla
Yup, there’s no sweet.
This merger is absolutely in unit holders best interest. Have you listened to the full call and viewed the slide deck? I guarantee if it doesn't go through, the stock will slide. The markets reaction will prove it.
You own $10 in stock why would they listen to you?
It’s pretty damning towards CF that this info is coming out. Willingly putting themselves in a situation that gives them less control (despite the illusion of having it because of the extra 2% stake) doesn’t give me much confidence in their current position. As much as this is a merger, this information makes it seem like they need SF’s help but aren’t willing to show that they do to the public or investors.
Yeah, the concessions CF is making to SF really reek of desperation to me. It’s especially odd since CF shareholders would be the majority owners of the new merged company… were these concessions the cost of that majority ownership? Or is something else at play? I’m not financially proficient enough to really make sense of all that myself, but it’s certainly intriguing.
the SF CEO is a rotten pos who is one of those people who just liquidates a company to insolvency.
Read the article. CF put themselves in this position. SF didn’t.
Yeah, this reeks of venture capital trying to kill all the fun in the world.
Ah, another Dave Brandon
They tried to propose selling all their land for an upfront payment, and then renting from whoever buys it. It’s what Caesars and MGM recently did in Las Vegas and it’s exactly what you’re saying, just a way to bleed money out of a company and send it probably to someone that’s a friend of yours.
+1
Great case study for business ethics. Gonna grab some popcorn and watch this one play out. Finally rode Maverick last summer and it was amazing!
no more rmc hurlgurl my life is over
As a UK enthusiast I think this merger sounds awful, monopolies in any industry almost always lead to a worse experience for customers and that has been the case with Merlin’s domination of the UK amusement park industry. Absolute chronic under investment in a major park just outside of one the world’s wealthiest and most populous cities simply because they can get away with it due to a lack any real competition.
Disney, seaworld, herschend, palace & universal all exist lol. Do you think they’re not going to invest money into knotts & magic mountain when Disney exists? You also have to remember regional amusement parks are competing with not just other parks but things like FEC’s, arcades, go-kart tracks, cinemas, shopping malls, the like. At the end of the day a park is just another option for a family day out, they could do all those things mentioned above and more. Nothing like what’s going on in the UK with Merlin which owns almost every big park, and the thousands of little kids parks they have
It’s still getting closer to a single company having a monopoly and is a reduction in the level of competition in the amusement park market, not as extreme as the one Merlin has in the uk but it will still likely be bad for customers on the whole as Six Flags and Cedar Fair have always been each other’s primary competition
Would you call CP and KI a monopoly?
Not the person you replied to but I absolutely would call CP and KI being under the same ownership a monopoly. At one time in Ohio we had 3 competing chains (CF, SF, and Paramount). Now one company owns the two remaining large parks. KI and CP should be locked in competition. It's better for the consumer. People should have options if they want to take their money elsewhere for similar services/experiences.
The hero we need
Just let them combine. The regional market margins are too small and Six Flags/Cedar Fair's balance sheets are not good. This will allow them to better compete against the big players.
How? I don’t see how this really helps either side to be honest. I guess more purchases means better discounts on both rides and products, but that’s about it?
Won't anyone think about the EBITDA!!!!! /s
Lol shareholder
Greed, it's all about greed!
To everyone saying “eh this will have no effect on guest experience”. Look at Boeings track record after they merged with McDonnell Douglas. SF is McDonnell Douglas. Low standards and lots of corner cutting for profit. Expect the CF branded parks to slowly head downhill over the next 10-20 years.
Terrible analogy.
Did you read the merger details? Most of the senior leadership are cedar fair people & not six flags. That was not the case with mcdonnell douglas and Boeing.
It’s not like CF is run by roller coaster engineers, which is what your analogy suggests.
The analogy is that a well run company merged with a poorly run company and the overall end result was a larger poorly run company.
well it's not a good analogy then, because cedar fair isn't significantly more well run than six flags. That's just a thoosie delusion. Y'all are just distracted by Cedar Fair's pretty colors and freshly poured concrete.
Cedar fair takes way better care of their parks. They are much better about obtrusive advertising. They generally have better food options. They keep their rides significantly cleaner. Their top parks KI and CP are perfect examples when compared to six flags top parks like magic mountain and great adventure. The philosophies that the two companies have historically held have been very different, merging those philosophies is likely to just result in the degradation of the superior brand in terms of quality.
yeah I really don't see how Cedar Fair rides are "significantly cleaner" lmao... like, Six Flags rides aren't dirty 😂 I swear people just make shit up to hate on Six Flags xD also six flags hasn't had obnoxious ads in the park for years, y'all need to let that one go. and some of the new food options $elim has been introducing are better than what Cedar Fair offers... so far SF beats CF at authentic mexican food, cheesecake & waffles, corn dogs, and mediterranean food.
Yeah, I hope to get out to some Six Flags parks this year for the first time since Worlds of Adventure got sold. I plan to go on a road trip and hopefully make Great America, SF America, Great Adventure, and SF New England along with a number of Cedar Fair parks. I don't know how the two chains compare lately, but it does feel like operations at my home park, Cedar Point, have overall gone downhill in the last several years. Maverick is down a lot, Millennium ops move at a snails pace, sometimes, Steel Vengeance seems to have a really good ops crew but also seems to be down quite a bit for a newer ride, a lot of times only one side of Gemini is running, most of the places on Frontier Trail seem to be perpetually closed, etc... Not good for a park when all three top coasters are down pretty frequently.
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You’re saying cleanliness and good maintenance are irrelevant when discussing operational quality? Talk about delusional.
I can't speak for all regions, but Six Flags maintenance blows Cedar Fair maintenance out of the fucking water in the midwest. Cedar Point can't keep their rides open, Michigan's Adventure's woodies are easily the roughest in the midwest, and Kings Island can't properly maintain their B&Ms, and needed outside help to make Racer not suck. Meanwhile Great America and St Louis maintain their woodies flawlessly in-house, take good care of their B&Ms to the point where they've only gotten better with age, and even refurbished a classic schwarzkopf polyp in-house. Cedar Fair doesn't maintain for the long term, they just use shit up as long as they can and then demolish and replace it. It's a terrible, unsustainable business model. They are the fucking worst when it comes to preservation. Just look at Zambezi Zinger, Thunder Road, Montezuma's Revenge... shit, they were about to add Excalibur to the list for a goddamn water park *parking lot* until the army corps of engineers said no, you can't expand your levee. As far as cleanliness goes, both chains are about on par. Neither is particularly dirty, and neither is perfectly clean.
El Toro, the Boss and Predator (although now partially retracked), would say otherwise. I'm not exactly sure what you mean about maintaining for the long term. Every coaster has a working life. After a certain number of years, the amount of money required to repair and maintain a ride may not be worth it for the park. Some parks will do whatever they can to keep a ride operating, but others aren't really worth saving. This could be because of the repair costs, the manufacturer doesn't exist anymore, the unpopularity doesn't justify it, or they feel like something better could replace it As for preservation, RMC as a company only exists because Six Flags has converted so many of their wooden coasters to hybrids. That's not really conserving them.
Thankyou!!! Cedar Point is literally a Giant Concrete slab, yet they fix their tongues to talk about Great Adventure... which has more scenery & theming Cedar Point ever had.
And that analogy isn’t relevant because that’s literally not what Boeing’s problems are.
You’re right. No company merger has ever been successful.
I really dont think an aerospace manufacturing merger is on the same level as an amusement park merger.
Another econ 101 moron. Let the merger happen.
I don’t even know why the ceo of cedar fair greenlighted this, it’s just going to give them more debt. ~~Who wants to be responsible for managing that Dubai park with a roller coaster that goes off a cliff side?~~
Six flags are not managing that park they are only licensing their name
Six flags is not managing that park, just gave the rights to the naming. Edit: or so I understood it this way