Snyder continues to court Six Flags shareholders, may sue to stop further property sales

So what? Every business has debt. I owe about $6k that I racked up over the years running this site. I owe $160,000 for my house. About $10,000 for my car. Debt isn't a bad thing. Six Flags didn't buy park with cash anymore than Cedar Fair bought Geauga Lake or Knott's with cash.

Yes, Six Flags may be on time and making thier payments to pay off debt. But, they just are mostly paying principle . If they pay off some of their debt, their stock will go up. Not only that but the company will be better off.

Its only natural for a company like Six Flags to have major debt after all it has been formed by big fish eating the little fish. If a park has debt and you buy the park, you aquire the debt. Six Flags just got too big too fast, and now they have to get back on track making more profit. They have to find ways to make the amount of debt less with as little damage as possible. They may have to sell a few parks in order to do that. I understand what you guys are saying that you lose profit if you sell a park. But, if the park is not making profit or outside influences may be forcing a particular park not to make as much profit as they would like, then they may be better off selling that particular park.Its just the parks that they do not see as making profits in the long run are the ones to get the ax.

Huh?

First, I assume you mean that SFI are mostly paying interest, and not paying on the principle (principle is what you borrowed.. interest is the fee charged to borrow it).

Second, Six Flags, Inc. is in debt. Not their parks. Their parks are bankrolled by the company. They could sell off every one of their parks - the people/entities buying them would not take on a cent of debt. Not even the person/entity who bought the last remaining park. On the other hand, if someone were to buy the company (i.e. what Premier did to SF in the first place), then yes they'd take on the debt.

It's like an apple tree. Pluck an apple, all you get is the apple. Dig up the tree, and the apples come with it, along with everything else inside the tree.

I believe CF DID borrow money to buy GL. That would be going into debt. Also According to 2004 annual report, CF has long term debt of about 440 million, up almost 100 million from 2003. Much less than 2.9 billion though. (In case you were wondering which one was greater :p)

Yes, Cedar Fair did borrow money to buy Geauga Lake. What planet do you guys live on? Read the annual reports. This isn't a Six Flags vs. Cedar Fair debate. I might not be an expert on corporate finance, but don't talk out of your ass about what's good or bad if you don't understand it.

dannerman

I know the parks themselves are not in debt. What I meant to say is what you said I guess I just did not say it correctly sorry.

But now there is an article out there that Snyder is trying to prevent SF from selling Astroworld*** This post was edited by Cs6153 9/21/2005 7:02:07 PM ***

Yes everyone has debts and has to pay them off...unfortunately SF has incurred alot more debt than they can actually pay off on a timely basis. By selling Astroworld, this gives them cash right now to pay off a hefty sum of their debts. The whole reason Astroworld was chosen was the lack of space around the park for expansion, the recent problems of sharing the parking lot with Reliant Stadium. There just was no way that Astroworld could continue to be a thriving amusement park with no room to expand and no place for visitors to park. Unfortunatley we may see SF sell off other parks that are in the same situation like SFEG.

CS6153...As for the comment on premier being a big fish eating a little fish, I think premier was a little fish that swallowed a big fish, and is now exploding because it ate more than it really could.

That's false! Where do people keep getting this idea that they can't make their payments? They haven't defaulted on any loans! The problem is that they're not profitable, and therefore not paying off the debt at the accelerated rate that they hoped for.

Jeff, you may have a 160K mortgage on your house, but if you're smarter than SF, you're not ONLY paying interest, you're also reducing the principal as time goes by....critical difference that.... ;)