Six Flags will exercise option to buy remaining stake in Georgia park

My understanding is that they're buying both parks SFOG and SFOT back from that 3rd party. I don't know why you'd sell two of your biggest parks to a 3rd party. Must have been desperate for capital?

Wonder what other sketchy deals will be uncovered as time goes on.

I believe this goes back to the late 60s. Definitely ahead of the present day company. Angus Wynne was a real estate developer and never intended to get into theme parks. That’s why he sold them. Not sure about Georgia but the company has been buying shares from the partnership in Texas for years. SF has an ownership stake higher than 50%.

I don't think they ever sold to investors, it sounds like this was just the earliest arrangement.

From what I could find, the SFOT partnership purchased the park in 1969, 8 years or so after the park opened.

Remember learning about the 3rd party stuff when SFOT almost went to Premier Parks in the '90s. The original investment 3rd party was frustrated that Time Warner wasn't investing in the park and they had some contract loophole where they could seek new management and Premier got involved. Pretty sure there was a pres announcement that Premier was to gain control of the park. A family member was actually in talks to help them set up some office space in the Dallas area. Time Warner banged out an 11th hour deal to keep it. It seemed really odd that the original Six Flags park almost wasn't a Six Flags park.

Burke was supposedly super pissed about it and it lead to them negotiating to buy out the whole chain from Time Warner.

Interesting. That's the guy who was really responsible for the bankruptcy.