Cedar Fair and Six Flags merger to complete July 1, mostly Cedar Fair executives to lead new company
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From the press release on closing:
Cedar Fair, L.P. (NYSE: FUN) (“Cedar Fair”) and Six Flags Entertainment Corporation (NYSE: SIX) (“Six Flags”), today announced that they notified the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) that the closing of Cedar Fair and Six Flags’ previously announced merger of equals (the “Mergers”) is expected to occur on July 1, 2024 (the “Expected Closing Date”). The completion of the Mergers is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of a number of conditions set forth in the merger agreement relating to the Mergers, including the satisfaction of regulatory conditions.
Six Flags today additionally announced that its Board of Directors has declared a special dividend of $1.53 per share of Six Flags common stock. The dividend is payable on July 1, 2024 to stockholders of record of Six Flags as of June 28, 2024 who hold their shares through the closing of the Mergers. The special dividend is conditioned on the closing of the Mergers and is being declared in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement. Accordingly, the record date and payment date may change based on the actual closing date of the Mergers.
Until the Mergers are complete, Cedar Fair’s units and Six Flags’ common stock will continue to trade on the NYSE. Upon the closing of the Mergers, (i) Cedar Fair’s units, which currently trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “FUN” and (ii) Six Flags’ common stock, which currently trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “SIX,” will cease to be listed on the NYSE following the closing of the Mergers and will each be deregistered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Immediately following the closing of the Mergers, the combined company will be renamed “Six Flags Entertainment Corporation” and trading of the combined company’s common stock on the NYSE is expected to begin on the day following the Expected Closing Date, July 2, 2024, under the ticker symbol “FUN.”
From the leadership press release:
Cedar Fair, L.P. (NYSE: FUN) (“Cedar Fair”) and Six Flags Entertainment Corporation (NYSE: SIX) (“Six Flags”), today announced the senior management team that will lead the combined company following the completion of their previously announced merger of equals (the “Mergers”).
As previously announced, upon closing of the transaction, Richard Zimmerman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cedar Fair, will serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of the combined company and Selim Bassoul, President and Chief Executive Officer of Six Flags, will serve as Executive Chairman of the combined company’s Board of Directors.
After completion of the Mergers, the following leaders will report to Zimmerman in the combined company:
- Tim Fisher, Chief Operating Officer (currently in same position at Cedar Fair)
- Brian Witherow, Chief Financial Officer (currently in same position at Cedar Fair)
- Brian Nurse, Chief Legal & Compliance Officer, and Corporate Secretary (currently in same position at Cedar Fair)
- Christian Dieckmann, Chief Strategy Officer (currently in same position at Cedar Fair)
- Gary Mick, Chief Integration Officer (currently Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Six Flags)
“We are fortunate to have a proven team of leaders who bring decades of park operating experience and significant expertise in integrating businesses and achieving synergy targets for the combined company,” said Zimmerman. “Their insights and complementary skill sets will be instrumental as we combine two of North America’s iconic amusement park companies and forge a new future together.”
The closing of the Mergers is expected to occur on July 1, 2024, subject to satisfaction or waiver of a number of conditions set forth in the merger agreement, including the satisfaction of regulatory conditions. Upon closing of the transaction, the combined company will operate under the name Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, trade under the ticker symbol “FUN” on the NYSE, and be structured as a C Corporation. The combined company will be headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and will maintain significant finance and administrative operations in Sandusky, Ohio.
Touchdown:
every other acronym is over 20 years old and heavily used on the internet
I think we use different internets.
Hi
Continuing the "giving away the gate" conversation:
SFGAm's gold pass (parking and admission from now through 2025) during their Fall pre-sale is...$75.
How much is a bottle of Coke/Dasani water at Great Adventure? My guess is $7? I’m sure they will continue price increases inside the parks to cover what they don’t charge in admission/passes while reporting higher guest spending. Financial folks are too dumb to know what is happening.
Financial folks understand that money is fungible. In fact, that's one of the points of "money." If per-capita spending really is going up, then it is Mission Accomplished, and it does not matter how it happens.
The question is whether or not that's what is happening. And, it could be. How many of those passes won't ever get used, or won't be used more than once? How many of them will include meal/flash/etc. add-ons?
Or, it could just be that folks are getting in on the cheap and drinking water by the 6oz cup.
So I got my wish, $999 buys me an all season all park Fastlane+ for 2025 and the rest of 2024. Sold.
2022 Trips: WDW, Sea World San Diego & Orlando, CP, KI, BGW, Bay Beach, Canobie Lake, Universal Orlando
If you're not watching Ouimet on LinkedIn, he's basically giving a free master class in running a theme park company.
Jeff - Editor - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
Is he fully retired, or is this a pitch to be on another board somewhere to keep him fulfilled ?
Nothing to see here. Move along.
I suspect he's done. Given his resume, I doubt he needs the money, and he doesn't strike me as someone who "needs" more. His priorities are pretty good for a person who has worked at his level.
Jeff - Editor - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
He is creating enough content at this point that this could be leading to a book...which is one I would happily purchase.
"You can dream, create, design, and build the most wonderful place in the world...but it requires people to make the dreams a reality." -Walt Disney
I would really like his work at DL layed out actually, prior to the 50th, people don’t remember just how bad things got there. He’s basically responsible for putting in place the kinda refurbishment schedule, fan servicing events, and food options at DL, that still make DL to me far more enjoyable then Orlando, and I think he did the best he could w DCA in the state it was given to him, but it’s crazy cause he was only there 3 years after the Cruise Line.
I am looking forward to seeing what a full off-season of integration looks like for the new Six Flags. I have noticed that the corporate Six Flags social media accounts still exclusively post about legacy Six Flags parks, so I am curious when that transition and other things will start to mold together.
When I renewed my Cedar Point pass, I was still being directed to Cedar Fair charities for a donation, and my account still lives under the Cedar Fair branding. I figure it may take 1-2 years to fully integrate, but I like to follow these processes.
Enjoy the rest of your day at America's Rockin' Roller Coast! Ride On!
Maverick00:
I am looking forward to seeing what a full off-season of integration looks like for the new Six Flags. I have noticed that the corporate Six Flags social media accounts still exclusively post about legacy Six Flags parks, so I am curious when that transition and other things will start to mold together.
When I renewed my Cedar Point pass, I was still being directed to Cedar Fair charities for a donation, and my account still lives under the Cedar Fair branding. I figure it may take 1-2 years to fully integrate, but I like to follow these processes.
I suspect that we will see a LOT of Six Flags integration this off season. Opening day 2025 I am 99.99% certain the uniforms will be swapped out for Six Flags branded uniforms, and new drink cups that have all 42 parks on them, not just the 11 legacy cedar fair or 27 legacy six flags.
Siren's Curse marketing might also give a sign of things to come...
Counting down the days until I'm back at Cedar Point, the one and only place to be.
Alexander James:
I suspect that we will see a LOT of Six Flags integration this off season
I agree in the sense that the legacy Six Flags parks may see some changes to bring them in line with the legacy Cedar Fair parks.
Keep in mind the new chain may be named Six Flags, but new Six Flags (so far) is operating as Cedar Fair with a new name and a heck of a lot of new parks. And at least in 2025 it appears Six Flags (the company) will be operating two divisions of parks, Legacy Six Flags and Legacy Cedar Fair.
The biggest challenge, I imagine is common ticketing. I learned this year that the home-grown Paramount-era Gate Central is still in use. I remember the CF people hated it for a long time, though I'm not convinced that they had any viable alternative. I don't entirely understand why there isn't a third party who does it well as a service. I understand it pretty well (and know a fair amount about two Major Theme Park systems), and while the the cases are a pain, it's not that hard of a problem to solve.
Jeff - Editor - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
The basic season pass isn’t a software challenge- but all the pass add ons that integrate into other systems are what drove them to keep (and modernize) the paramount ticketing system. For how much customization they wanted, it was better to retain a team of programmers than it was to use another company’s software solution, and be charged every time they wanted a modification.
As they consolidate the pass program across the two chains, having an in-house developer team is an area where economy of scale applies.
I don't really agree. A third party could have done it better. Their POS (on the CF side at least) is Micros, which is pretty well understood, and that's where the entitlements have to talk. I think there was always a little hubris on their part that they knew better.
Jeff - Editor - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
Cedar Fair's core competencies lie in running parks, not designing and building POS/Ticketing systems. If they do it in house and they are the best solution for the market, then they should have a spinoff company to build and sell those systems. But they don't because they aren't. It only makes sense that they rely on a third party who specialize in software design and development to handle that part of the business.
Legacy Six Flags uses Accesso which in my experience is just about ok. Their implementation of that particular POS is far better than Merlin's which is a PoS.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Part of the problem that may exist is that in addition to two different systems (CF and Six), I am pretty sure neither is necessarily modern in implementation or necessarily current with technology. The front ends are definitely different, but the back ends could be entirely different. We saw in the summer (and to some extent last year) the difference between Delta and Southwest in their handling of the Crowdstrike outage. Southwest generally survived by having a really antiquated tech stack that cost them a few years ago, while Delta withered with a more modern tech But a year or so ago, the opposite happened.
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