Reuters and The Wall Street Journal are reporting that Six Flags and Cedar Fair are nearing a deal to merge.
Cedar Fair is supposed to report its quarterly earnings tomorrow morning, so we should expect at least some investor questions about the deal then, if not an announcement. [Update: The deal happened. And it looks like fans got their wish - see below - with Cedar Fair's CEO in charge of the new company.]
The big question from theme park fans would be, who runs the combined company? A combined Six Flags and Cedar Fair would operate 26 theme parks and multiple other water parks across North America. However, the companies' theme park portfolios would overlap in only two markets, both in California, with Knott's Berry Farm and Six Flags Magic Mountain in the Los Angeles area and California's Great America and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Six Flags has struggled financially since abandoning its tradition of admission discounting under its current leadership. Cedar Fair initially recovered well in 2022 following the pandemic lockdowns, but has reported weaker performance to date in 2023. Both companies have been falling father behind industry leaders Disney and Universal since the lockdowns, with rival SeaWorld pushing to claim more of Six Flags' and Cedar Fair's traditional market of serving roller coaster and thrill ride fans.
Cedar Fair and Six Flags have been down this road before, with Six Flags trying to buy Cedar Fair in 2019, only for Cedar Fair to tell Six Flags 'no thanks'. Six Flags brings the stronger brand name to the table, as Cedar Fair is the largest U.S. theme park operator not to have an over-arching, customer-facing brand identity for its parks. But Six Flags' brand has not delivered much value to its parks in recent years, as current management as acknowledged in its attempt to drive the brand upmarket by removing discounts.
At the moment, Six Flags has a market capitalization of $1.7 billion, while Cedar Fair stands at $1.92 billion. Both stocks are up sharply on the merger speculation.
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Magic Mountain, Great Adventure, Great America, Over Georgia and the Texas parks are likely safe. But I would have to think there will be a significant purge of smaller and/or lower performing parks across both chains after this merger takes place. I also wonder if the now tainted Six Flags branding goes away for all but original parks Over Georgia, Over Texas and St Louis.
Good lord, I feel bad for Cedar Farm fans, this is like getting married to someone with leprosy. I'm done done done with Six Flags unless they really turn things around.
cedar fair did try to force "Haunt" on Knott's many years ago... but, agreed.
@thecolonel - Why do you think a combined SF/CF company would by led by SF executives? Cedar Fair has the larger market cap despite fewer properties, so if I were on CF's side of the table, I would be insisting on their managers having veto power, at least on operational and overall management decisions. I will say that Six Flags has been slowly improving of late, at least in my limited experiences at their parks of late. I don't think the companies integrating the best of each would be such a bad thing, because there are probably a number of things each chain could learn from the other.
In the end, this is quite the bombshell that if it comes to fruition will dramatically impact the theme park industry in the US.
Wonder what will become of Qiddiya ??
@russell "Why do you think a combined SF/CF company would by led by SF executives?"
I don't, my point was only that Cedar Fair has maintained a fine reputation, at least in my estimation, whereas Six Flags has sunk like a stone, so I would hope it doesn't drag them down. And look, if CF can resuscitate SF, I'd be thrilled, I loved Six Flags growing up and hate to see what it's become.
Cedar Fair's operational record post-COVID is probably worse than Six Flags'. Cedar Point was atrocious to visit last summer. Neither company has really recovered from the disaster at all, and this is most likely a survival move for both. I see way more downsides than upsides to this and I'm afraid we're going to lose a lot of historic smaller parks and their rides, but it's impossible to know how it will shake out ahead of time. Fingers crossed for the least damaging resolution.
if Cedar Fair took over as management wise they seem to do a better job than Six Flags
I doubt Magic Mountain will be safe due to Knott’s is more successful of the two(Better attendance, more maintained, more seasonal offerings for the whole family). Plus, Magic Mountain isn’t opened year round while Knott’s is and has the benefit of being near Disneyland to offer out of state tourists another nearby park to go to during their visit.
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I think this deal would mean a quick demise for California's Great America, which is already on the clock. But what happens with Magic Mountain and Knott's Berry Farm? I refuse to imagine a world in which Scary Farm has to rebrand as a Six Flags Fright Fest.