SF Earnings Announcement

SF has announced they will release first quarter earnings on May 6th. How do you feel they are going to do? Is attendance up over last year (based on visiting your local park) or is going to be down again because of weather?

I know at my home park, SFA, attendance seemed to be on par for last year, but we have some bad weather, the second weekend was pretty cold and we have had rain on a couple of weekends but nice weather other weekends

I'm going to guess that overall they have done better, just look at all the TR from Great Adventure.

Guys, the first quarter ended in March---except for MM, this season has no impact on 1Q numbers. They may foreshadow early season results, but that's a "forward looking statement"

Oh, never mind my post then :)

The real barometer for companies operating seasonal parks is third quarter (or whatever that translates to in their fiscal calendar), where the bulk of their annual attendance falls.

Brian is correct, I should think before I post. Seems my brain is stuck in one gear. But I think it is still a good discussion topic.

Jeff makes a good point. The real barometer is the third quarter. However, with SF any bad quarter can send their stock price way down. With SFMM apparently still having ride capacity and operational issues makes me wonder if they were able to put together a decent winter quarter or not.

Remember, 8/02, stock was selling for $12 a share, they had a bad second quarter and the stock price was nearly cut in half. *** Edited 4/29/2004 4:51:00 PM UTC by coasterguts***

Would the sale of SFWoA and the European parks impact the earnings report? I would say no because it is not tecnically operating profit, but it IS cash flow. Shows what I know...

If it does, I believe it wouldn't be until the 2nd quarter.

Didn't they say that they were gonna write the sale of the european division & SFWOA as a technical loss when the sale of these properties was first announced?

At least with the sale of the above mentioned parks it removes the investment concerns from the company & to a small extent eases their debt load....whatever happens there now is completely in the hands of the new owners & if it turns out to be a failure then at least it's no longer SFI's responsibility.