Cedar Fair to unit holders: Pay no attention to Q Investments

But that is my point--"change" is not the option. The choices are

1) Current Management
2) Management that Q wants.

No one at the University of Michigan, no matter how dissatisfied with Lloyd Carr, voted for "let's have the worst 3 years in the history of Wolverine football." They wanted "change," they got disaster.

If you think Option 2 is better than Option 1, vote for #2. But if you think that current management needs to be replaced, don't delude yourself into thinking that Option 2 is NECESSARILY an upgrade. You pays you money and you take your chances.

Which brings me to a point that no one seems to want to come to grips with: Why do people think that Q will be an upgrade? Yeah, yeah, I know all about Kinzel's deficiencies--those are NOT reasons why Q's management will be an upgrade. (Unless it is from the Q Continuum--I'll concede that Omnipotent Gods would be a clear upgrade.) The fact that Q Investments wants to divert debt repayment $$$ to current dividends is alarming IMO. Why does everyone else think that Q will be an upgrade over current management? And don't explain why current management sucks, why will Q be BETTER?

Q can't "bring in" anyone. They don't have that ability. The board still appoints its executives. It can do better than Dick Kinzel. There are a lot of epic failures on his hands since 2005, and he hasn't been held accountable. Furthermore, I want them to come clean about the Falfas situation, because CF and Q can't both be telling the truth on that. I'd love for someone to explain away the nepotism as well.

Q isn't demanding that they pick the new management. They're only saying that they have the right to reject management that replaces Kinzel as they see fit. You know, so that Bart doesn't move into that position.

'Management that Q wants' is a risk. Gonch said as much. And for the record, Rodriguez was doing fine at WVU. Sure, he screwed things up at Michigan (well, according to Michigan fans, the rest of us are fine with what he did ;) ), but I and many other people don't feel he's a bad coach. That whole situation didn't come about because Rich was a bad coach, there were more factors involved.

And that could happen here, not one person in this thread said that the next management won't have the option of sucking either. But, then, it could be left up to Dick and Co. to find a replacement, which could go either way as well.

There isn't just 2 options here. Q wants new management, many others do as well. They're just making sure that the board members don't go out and just promote someone without actually doing a search. I'd say they have the right to do that.

In the end, Q is not picking the management. They're calling for new management. They're also reminding the board they have the option to vote against the new management, which doesn't necessarily mean that new management will be reject.

No single man/woman is bigger than an organization. Many people expressed these same sort of, "maybe the known is better than the unknown" feelings when people were calling for Michael Eisner's separation from Disney. But, Disney has gone on without him just as their animation division has gone on without Kattzenberg. Companies will change and adapt. (The Pixar deal at Disney doesn't get done if Eisner is still with the company because his ego got in the way of that deal. Who would suggest that Disney would have been better off without Pixar?)

Q is now in a position to aggressively push for what many insiders have felt for a while now. Kinzel's departure. Going back to 2005 as Jeff mentioned it started out as whispers. A couple of years ago it was evident that the institutional investors were starting to questions Kinzel's leadership. A year or two ago it was the small investors questioning Kinzel as he started discussing selling the company, cancelled Unitholder meetings at the last minute, etc.

If there was evidence that anyone on the Board or within the company could confidently challenge Kinzel then his son (and son-in-law) wouldn't have the positions that they have. The Falfas departure still stinks to high heaven and I'll bet we haven't heard that last of that. If he does not return I suspect it is going to be costly to the company just as the failed sale of the company was costly.

Yes, the guy who doesn't much care for the financial side of the business has led a concentrated effort to pay down the debt. Are the doubters here saying that the next CEO or Chairman of the Board is going to miss this very glaring and obvious issue that needs to continue to be addressed?

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." - George Bernard Shaw