Guests dressed in mask experience on a curler coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain on its first day of reopening to contributors and go holders in Valencia, Calif., on April 1, 2021.
Jae C. Hong/AP
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Jae C. Hong/AP
Guests dressed in mask experience on a curler coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain on its first day of reopening to contributors and go holders in Valencia, Calif., on April 1, 2021.
Jae C. Hong/AP
Cedar Honest and Six Flags are merging to create an expansive amusement park operator with operations unfold throughout 17 U.S. states and 3 nations. The blended corporate, price greater than $3.5 billion, will boast 27 amusement parks, 15 water parks and 9 lodge houses within the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. It is going to even have leisure partnerships and a portfolio of highbrow belongings together with Looney Tunes, DC Comics and Peanuts. Amusement parks have noticed an uptick in earnings however have struggled to lift attendance for the reason that pandemic, at the same time as different leisure sectors have bounced again. A tie-up between two massive avid gamers is predicted to a minimum of decrease prices.
Cedar Honest reported an attendance of 12.4 million visitors in its 0.33 quarter, a 1% build up from a yr previous. Six Flags introduced a 16% upward thrust in its third-quarter attendance, which totaled 9.3 million visitors.
However amusement parks, together with Six Flags, has struggled to get folks during the gates, stated James Hardiman at Citi Funding Analysis. “While the theme park business as a complete has been underneath vital drive for the reason that get started of the pandemic, Six Flags has created further drive of its personal, with a risky new attendance and pricing technique that has struggled to take root, alienating its core consumers and resulting in dramatic drops in visitation alongside the way in which,” Hardiman wrote. Six Flags and Cedar Honest, that have little geographical overlap, look forward to $120 million in value financial savings inside of two years of ultimate the deal. Six Flags and Cedar Honest have mentioned doable offers sooner than, with Six Flags prior to now making an be offering for Cedar Honest in 2019, but it surely used to be grew to become down. SeaWorld approached Cedar Honest with a bid closing yr, however that proposal used to be additionally rejected. Below the settlement introduced Thursday, Cedar Honest unitholders will obtain one proportion of commonplace inventory within the blended corporate for each and every unit owned, whilst Six Flags shareholders will obtain 0.5800 stocks of inventory within the blended corporate for each and every proportion owned.
Cedar Honest unitholders will personal roughly 51.2% of the blended corporate, whilst Six Flags shareholders will personal about 48.8%.
“Our merger with Six Flags will convey in combination two of North The united states’s iconic amusement park firms to ascertain a extremely assorted footprint and a extra powerful running fashion to make stronger park choices and function,” Cedar Honest CEO Richard Zimmerman stated in a ready observation. Zimmerman will likely be president and CEO of the blended corporate. Selim Bassoul, president and CEO of Six Flags, will develop into govt chairman. The corporations stated that given their broader geographic footprint as a unmarried corporate, seasonal volatility will have to reasonable. The corporate’s newly shaped board will come with six administrators from Cedar Honest and 6 administrators from Six Flags. The corporate will likely be headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and can stay vital finance and administrative operations in Sandusky, Ohio, the place Cedar Honest is primarily based. Six Flags is now primarily based in Arlington, Texas. As soon as the deal closes, the blended corporate will function underneath the title Six Flags and business underneath the ticker image “FUN” at the New York Inventory Change. The transaction, which used to be authorized by way of each firms’ forums, is focused to near within the first part of subsequent yr. It nonetheless wishes approval from Six Flags shareholders. Stocks of Six Flags Leisure Corp. and Cedar Honest LP have been necessarily flat sooner than the outlet bell Thursday, however each are up greater than 9% this week after rumors of a deal started to unfold.
