Six Flags posts $1.6 billion loss for 2025

Since they didn't post the comparison for the full year 2024, here's what I could find in the filings:

• Net revenue: $2.70 billion. ~-13%
• Attendance: 41.6 million. ~-12%
• Per cap: $61.31. ~1%
• Net loss: $206.66 million.
• Adjusted EBITA: $879 million. ~-10%
• Operating days: 4,369

If I read Zimmerman's employment agreement right, he walked away with $3.85 million for his trouble.

Matt Ouimet looks smarter every day. Why his Board didn't listen to him is beyond me. Hubris, I guess.

Summary and then transcript of earnings call.

https://www.fool.com/earnin...ranscript/

Reilly said he visited a lot of the parks in the chain. Talked with park leadership teams and frontline workers and conducted guest focus groups. Has received 300 suggestions from park employees to create efficiencies and automate workflows. Seems like he wants more local power/input. When looking at investments, need to ask: Does it enhance the guest experience in a way that drives profitable demand, reduces costs or strengthens free cash flow. Noted that canceling winter events at 4 parks didn't work well and said they will look at them on park by park basis rather than with broad brush.

Curious to know what didn’t go well with cancelling Winterfest/Holiday in the park.

they should have known how much they made/lost on those events last year. So by cancelling they would not make what they did last year (ok that’s a hit) or fail to lose what they lost last year (that’s good), so that should not be a surprise, with the only wild card being the impact on Season Passes. So did a lot of folks not renew because of winter events? And if so, isn’t that showing up in the 2026 pass data which they are claiming is good for ‘26?

or was the pushback so vocal that they’ve identified a market need, and now they just need to see how to squeeze profit out of it? How is that different from where they were at the end of 2024, when we scrutinized the hell out of those events trying to identify the profitability.

what am I missing? Or did they just yank the events not knowing internally whether they actually made money or not (which it seems like maybe they did???) how did they not know that already?

I have to say it seems really great they landed Reilly and kept Witherow. They just have decades of SF wrongs to fix quickly, and a few neglected CF parks.

His comments about Mexico, and the problems being park by park, and not systematic are the first great things I have heard since Matt left.

Fixing the app, getting food even more better and undercontrol and listening to local parks where the investment should go, should really start helping them with the perception front.

I haven’t dug into what exactly they are pinning the “$1.5 billion non-cash impairment charge on goodwill and other intangibles.” Trump? Weather? Overvalued SF assets?

I think if he can get the fundamentals under control, sell some extraneous properties, and smartly cap ex things, he can stabilize the ship, way better then Zimmerman.

The announcements for Great Adventure and OverTexas alone suggest they are listening where it counts, and they generally put very good people in charge of the regions and marketing.

as Matt summarized “ Qualified, Credible, and Authentic” and knows to listen to each park, and his teams there, instead of knowing better.

From Withrow on winter events (read into it what you will):

As was expected and as we discussed last quarter, a significant portion of the decline in operating days reflects our decision not to operate winter holiday events at four parks, a decision that was made earlier in the year. In hindsight, that decision did not optimize profits at every park the way we needed it to.

Those events can be meaningful demand drivers; removing them created a self-inflicted headwind in terms of both attendance and operating leverage. We are taking that learning directly into our planning for 2026, and we will rethink the winter holiday strategy with a tighter, returns-driven approach market by market rather than applying a broad brush. And while weather created variability in the quarter with 15 park closure days versus three last year, the more significant impact on demand was our decision to eliminate the winter holiday events, which created an attendance headwind of approximately 425,000 visits.

I'm trying to figure out if he is saying "people who used to come for a day in December did not add an extra day in July to make up for it" (which is not surprising) or "we sold fewer passes because we didn't have this thing" (which might be).

It sounds like he is saying the former, but I'm not sure it would have taken a rocket surgeon to guess that would happen.

Also…

Brian Witherow, CFO: We aim to exceed our weighted average cost of capital in investments and prioritize paying down debt until net leverage is below 4 times on a sustained level.

Those events can be meaningful demand drivers; removing them created a self-inflicted headwind in terms of both attendance and operating leverage. We are taking that learning directly into our planning for 2026, and we will rethink the winter holiday strategy with a tighter, returns-driven approach market by market rather than applying a broad brush.

How does a multi-billion-dollar corporation NOT know if these events make money? How is this difficult?!

I think more like someone whose name begins with Z, thought the spend was not worth the extra profit, but in reality cause of limited rides, just putting up lights, and some live E, the returns are bigger then it appears, also the knock on attendance, and prob pass sales in a quarter where they need it was misunderstood.

I can only imagine the kind of ROI Knotts Merry Farm pulls, or Dollywoods, obviously SoCal fixes alot of weather problems, but it shouldn’t be rocket science.

There is another gentleman who equally is to share blame for the 2025 season results with Zimmerman and his name is Selim Bassoul. Zimmerman was "the face" we all knew but Bassoul not only orchestrated this merger fiasco but also destroyed the Ouimet strategy that simply could have been rolled out to the legacy SIX parks.

Enough about the past though....

A new COO is desperately needed. Someone who is creative and open-minded to the world today and the future. Someone who understands the value of special event development, really punching up holidays, cultural/food/music/sports events, special appearances, ride anniversary celebrations, and more. Someone who understands that cutting, cutting, cutting has NEVER worked to dig oneself out of a hole.

Lastly, I think many of us who've spent decades in the parks know that taking an older attraction, refreshing it with special effects, paint, music, lighting, ride vehicles, etc. can be just as much of a draw as building from scratch and at a fraction of the cost. People are BEGGING to ride the Racer at KI backwards again. JUST DO IT! The old Arrow mine train rides have ride vehicles designed for body sizes from the 1960's/70's and need new trains but it has always been policy to NOT reinvest in attractions with new track, trains, etc. WHY? Now is the time to focus on low-investment, high-return on guest satisfaction ideas and hopefully John is on to that.

Reilly closed his remarks (before opening it up for questions) with:

Our experience with several winter holiday events this past year provided valuable lessons. We will approach seasonal programming with market-specific rigor, clear ROI thresholds, and test-and-scale methodology. It applies equally to capital investment. Safety and ride reliability are nonnegotiable. Beyond that, discretionary investments will prioritize projects that attract incremental visitors, improve throughput, enhance guest value, and generate measurable returns.

And some of the highest ROI opportunities are operational improvements—reducing downtime, eliminating inefficiencies, and standardizing systems that allow our teams to perform at their best. Taken together, these actions are designed to accelerate attendance recovery, deepen guest engagement, and restore durable earnings power. Let me wrap up with these closing thoughts. Our near-term priorities are clear: Improving profitability, strengthening the balance sheet, concentrating our time and resources on the assets and initiatives that generate the highest returns. Six Flags Entertainment Corporation is a company with unique assets and significant earnings potential.

Together, our teams are working to further our progress on elevating the guest experience, realizing the benefits of our incomparable scale to improve efficiency and margin, correcting missteps in marketing and operations, and continuing to create financial flexibility through deleveraging and disciplined capital allocation. We will be transparent about where we are. We will move decisively on what we can fix. And we will earn credibility and your trust the way it should be earned—through execution and results. The opportunity in front of us is meaningful, I am energized by what I have seen across the parks, I am confident in our path forward, and excited about what we can deliver together.

It is interesting to note that they did not issue any guidance for 2026 in terms of financial performance.