Cedar Fair Corporate Development Discussion Thread (FUN)

[la2lvtom]

^ Especially when you consider that Cedar Fair bought Six Flags World of Adventure for $145 million...

 

...Just to close it down.

 

And knotts for about $250million i believe too!

 

--Jay

 

Don't kid yourself with Knotts, that $250 mil was strickly to get the rights to the peanuts characters, the park was an incidental

[la2lvtom]

"nothing will change no one will loose thier jobs, business as usual."

I really hope no one will LOSE thier jobs either.

 

--Robb

 

You know Robb, I work for a casino here in Vegas that was bought out by Harrah's/Apollo and they held the "big meeting" to tell us everything would be business as usual and assured us "no one will be losing their jobs" and here it is a year later and our staff is less than half of what it was at that "meeting" so I only hope the Cedar Fair employees don't get the same treatment

[la2lvtom]

^ Agreed. However I have no idea of what Apollo's past actions have been with other entertainment companies. They have bought AMC Entertainment, Harrah's Entertainment, and Norwegian Cruise Line, for example.

 

Did they de-comission any NCL ships? Did they close any Harrah's casinos? Did they shut down any AMC theaters?

 

If their pattern with other companies has been to shut down underperforming venues in an effort to keep the thriving ones going, then I'd be a bit concerned if I was CGA or MI, but if this hasn't been their approach in the past, I'd doubt it's something they would do...at least not right away.

 

--Robb

 

I work for Harrah's Entertainment and have worked here since before we were purchased by Apollo (along with another company). There really hasnt been a major change aside from some capital projects being put on hold (mostly due to the economy). In fact we have remained the largest and most stable of any of the gaming companies around.

 

I find this interesting news as we recently purchased a racetrack near Cleveland. Ohio, as many know, is close to legalizing gaming, so I imagine its a prudent move to get a strong footing there.

 

Seriously, you haven't seen any change? How about the staff at your property dwindling, how about retail and restaurant space being leased out and the employees that worked in those original locations being let go and not transferred, how about them creating 5 property "pods" so all the upper mgmt of all the "pod"properties being let go and 1 executive for each dept run all 5 properties, do you miss your 401K matching 'cause I guarantee you that will never come back along with raises or bonuses. You may be front of house and don't see it the same as us back of house employees see things but I myself see big changes coming to Cedar Fair if this goes through and myself as a shareholder will be voting no. Then again on the bright side maybe we will finally get that giant ferris wheel out here we were told about months ago

[The Toader]

I don't know...

To me, I don't see this as a bad thing.

 

We have the individual parks, and then cedar fair. We have no problem with that right? no.

So now take Cedar fair, AMC, And casinos, then we have Apollo.

 

So it shouldn't be bad IMO.

[daveydo5172]

^^ Harrah's has half the workforce due to the recession.....most likely not for any other reason! The same goes for MGM Mirage and the Venetian and Wynn Resorts!

[la2lvtom]

^^Actually staff cutting started at our place before the recession started really getting bad, it started by Harrahs wanting to get rid of the people who had been at our place a long time to cut out big saleries. When the recession started making headlines in the paper and on t.v. is when they did mass layoffs and started closing restaurants, eliminating 401K match, raises and bonuses oh and the one cute thing Harrahs/Apollo did was put 80% of the remaining staff on "on-call full time" so they are working 40hrs a week but being on call they get no benefits, Merry Christmas to all and pray you don't get sick.

[ParkTrips]

I'm wondering what standard you're using to say Six Flags Worlds of Adventure was "doing well".

Attendance at the park around the year 2000 was greatly improved. They may have been able to make a run at Cedar Point had they done things better.

[DirkFunk]

Attendance at the park around the year 2000 was greatly improved.

 

But they didn't sell it in 2000. It was sold in 2004 after 3 subsequent years of steep falling attendance. If it was "doing well", Cedar Fair likely wouldn't have had the option to buy it.

[VGplay]

But they didn't sell it in 2000. It was sold in 2004 after 3 subsequent years of steep falling attendance. If it was "doing well", Cedar Fair likely wouldn't have had the option to buy it.

 

That's not quite right. 2000 saw record attendance for the park. 2001 was flat or slightly down with the joining of Sea World. 2002, yes, saw a pretty big drop in attendance. However, 2003 things picked back up and could have been considered "acceptable" for a park of its size. Six Flags Worlds of Adventure was making money and I've seen it mentioned that it was one of Six Flags' biggest money makers.

 

The only reason they sold the park was because they talked Cedar Fair into paying $145 million for it. If they couldn't have gotten that kind of money, I'd bet it would still be open as a Six Flags park today.

[Electerik]

Don't kid yourself with Knotts, that $250 mil was strickly to get the rights to the peanuts characters, the park was an incidental

 

I'm all for a good conspiracy theory, but that's pretty over the top.

 

First of all, the rights to use the Peanuts characters at the other parks did not automatically come with Knott's, and had to be negotiated separately--which they were, after the fact.

 

And secondly, your theory only makes any sense at all if you assume that CF believed that being able to use the Peanuts characters at their other parks would somehow make them more than $250-million. Even really long term, that seems pretty optimistic.

 

Also, Knott's instantly became CF's second most profitable park (after CP) the second it was acquired. So...no.

[cazazoo]

^ Agreed. However I have no idea of what Apollo's past actions have been with other entertainment companies. They have bought AMC Entertainment, Harrah's Entertainment, and Norwegian Cruise Line, for example.

 

Did they de-commission any NCL ships? Did they close any Harrah's casinos? Did they shut down any AMC theaters?

 

After the NCL Cruise line buyout, they canceled the American built ship renovations (SS United States & SS Independence) and have already scrapped the latter.

[Zero One]

Has anyone else noted that negotiations with Apollo were already underway when Cedar Fair announced the end of the dividend? That announcement sent the stock crashing and really helped Apollo get a great deal.

[dammie16@vt.edu]

I still have no worries about this.

 

As for loss of jobs, maybe jobs will get cut, mabe not. If they do well thats big business, if you don't like being treated as a number go work for a mom & pop place.

 

Life isn't all rainbows and candy handed out at every turn, its more like a Mayan ruin full of tricks and traps that if you get through you can reach the gold awesomeness at the end.

[DirkFunk]

That's not quite right. 2000 saw record attendance for the park. 2001 was flat or slightly down with the joining of Sea World. 2002, yes, saw a pretty big drop in attendance. However, 2003 things picked back up and could have been considered "acceptable" for a park of its size. Six Flags Worlds of Adventure was making money and I've seen it mentioned that it was one of Six Flags' biggest money makers.

 

The attendance of 2 million may have been seen as "acceptable" to those on the outside, but that Six Flags sold the park for a $70 million dollar loss (their words from the 2003 Annual Report) tells me things weren't that rosy. The 2003 season for Six Flags, FWIW, was projected in the shareholder letter to see a 3.5-4% increase in attendance, and instead SFWOA saw a 7% drop. The first year under Cedar Fair was, of course a disaster of biblical proportions, but it doesn't undermine why that place ended up being sold so cheaply (as Cedar Fair itself was now).

[ParkTrips]

Has anyone else noted that negotiations with Apollo were already underway when Cedar Fair announced the end of the dividend? That announcement sent the stock crashing and really helped Apollo get a great deal.

.. *IF* they can actually manage to get it done. No conspiracy theory though, with the debt load they took on from the Paramount purchase, they really needed to cut the dividend. FUN was a long-term investment stock for many, I'm sure there are plenty of people who look at a 40% loss over the past year and aren't happy about it. I'd be interested to see how many willingly take that loss or who wants to hold on and recover their investment.

 

 

...but that Six Flags sold the park for a $70 million dollar loss (their words from the 2003 Annual Report) tells me things weren't that rosy.

I'm pretty sure they just realized that keeping up with the investment levels of 2000-01 to compete with Cedar Point just wasn't worth it. What they did brought them closer, but they had a long way to go still. So again I stand by my statement that, though short-lived, there were good times at Geauga Lake, and the park's potential was never fulfilled.

[haiderodes]

^ Agreed. However I have no idea of what Apollo's past actions have been with other entertainment companies. They have bought AMC Entertainment, Harrah's Entertainment, and Norwegian Cruise Line, for example.

 

Did they de-comission any NCL ships? Did they close any Harrah's casinos? Did they shut down any AMC theaters?

 

If their pattern with other companies has been to shut down underperforming venues in an effort to keep the thriving ones going, then I'd be a bit concerned if I was CGA or MI, but if this hasn't been their approach in the past, I'd doubt it's something they would do...at least not right away.

 

--Robb

 

I work for Harrah's Entertainment and have worked here since before we were purchased by Apollo (along with another company). There really hasnt been a major change aside from some capital projects being put on hold (mostly due to the economy). In fact we have remained the largest and most stable of any of the gaming companies around.

 

I find this interesting news as we recently purchased a racetrack near Cleveland. Ohio, as many know, is close to legalizing gaming, so I imagine its a prudent move to get a strong footing there.

 

Seriously, you haven't seen any change? How about the staff at your property dwindling, how about retail and restaurant space being leased out and the employees that worked in those original locations being let go and not transferred, how about them creating 5 property "pods" so all the upper mgmt of all the "pod"properties being let go and 1 executive for each dept run all 5 properties, do you miss your 401K matching 'cause I guarantee you that will never come back along with raises or bonuses. You may be front of house and don't see it the same as us back of house employees see things but I myself see big changes coming to Cedar Fair if this goes through and myself as a shareholder will be voting no. Then again on the bright side maybe we will finally get that giant ferris wheel out here we were told about months ago

 

Its hard to say confidently that the changes we have had as a company are related strictly to the transition and not adjusting to the economy. Keep in mind lots of companies had to take the same measures for paycuts, suspending bonuses, 401k match etc. Compared to other similar companies in town, we have fared the best mostly because we were taken private before the meltdown.

 

As for the ferris wheel, that isnt the only thing they have announced...remember our arena? Things always get announced but put on hold/never built here in Vegas. Again, its hard to say this is strictly related to the transition and not the economy when it could be a combination of both.

 

As for leasing of outlets, lots of companies are doing that these days. Its a smart business move, its less cost upfront for us and in some instances, we have merely purchased the franchise keeping our own employees. Six Flags, Cedar Fair and other gaming companies have been doing this for years. Honestly, when you have few in-house offerings that are that strong to pull in the people, you have to try something else. While I question some of the partnerships, some just make sense.

 

The "pod" system had been around before Apollo, however it has been adjusted to account for various aquisitions and whatnot.

 

BTW, I dont work front of house, nor do I work for any one property. So that may be why I have a diffferent perspective, as the focus of my work is for Southern Nevada as a whole. I'm not sure where you are getting the stats on 80% of full time people being put on call. Sure there was some consolidation of workforce and elimination of redundancies, but again itshard to say Apollo did it.

[larrygator]

Has anyone else noted that negotiations with Apollo were already underway when Cedar Fair announced the end of the dividend? That announcement sent the stock crashing and really helped Apollo get a great deal.

.. *IF* they can actually manage to get it done. No conspiracy theory though, with the debt load they took on from the Paramount purchase, they really needed to cut the dividend. FUN was a long-term investment stock for many, I'm sure there are plenty of people who look at a 40% loss over the past year and aren't happy about it. I'd be interested to see how many willingly take that loss or who wants to hold on and recover their investment.

 

I'm pretty sure shareholders are just getting a cash payout and will no longer be invested.

 

Of course, as with any merger/sale they are always law firms taking on class action lawsuits. I think 4 law firms have already filed around this takeover stating the sale price per share is too low and/or the current share price had been manipulated to drive it lower.

[haiderodes]

^ Agreed. However I have no idea of what Apollo's past actions have been with other entertainment companies. They have bought AMC Entertainment, Harrah's Entertainment, and Norwegian Cruise Line, for example.

 

Did they de-commission any NCL ships? Did they close any Harrah's casinos? Did they shut down any AMC theaters?

 

After the NCL Cruise line buyout, they canceled the American built ship renovations (SS United States & SS Independence) and have already scrapped the latter.

 

Those ships were cancelled due to the cost involved in having US flagged ships. Due to our laws, it is a lot more expensive to have a ship registered in the US than other places. That's why the majority of boats are registered in the Bahamas and other offshore locales. There was a MSNBC special on not too long ago about the cruise industry. They profiled NCL and spoke specifically about this and why there arent more Hawaiian cruises.

[DirkFunk]

In the case of the SS United States, its worth mentioning that it was never a cruise ship. It was an ocean going passenger liner that's been mothballed for about 40 (!!!) years. The idea of renovating it into a Hawaiian liner was quite a nice one, but no plans were really ever concrete regarding its conversion. Can't exactly blame Apollo for not investing heavily in that.

[FlyingScooter]

Watch WWK (ohio) get the ax now!

[Steelinwood]

Gosh Forbid that Apolo falls through. If they make a big mistake, everything may be botched. I hate it when things seem uncertain.

[Vffreak07]

Watch WWK (ohio) get the ax now!

 

If so, VF gets dibs on the Tornado/kids area!

[CPmaverick]

Watch WWK (ohio) get the ax now!

 

If so, VF gets dibs on the Tornado/kids area!

I think Cedar Point needs them a little more

[Vffreak07]

Nahh, Valleyfair has the worst waterpark in the entire CF chain. It's like Cedar Point's minus the kids area and about 8 other slides.

 

Anyway, staying on topic, anyone else see this as being beneficial to parks expanding? For example, more money = more expansion (like parks that need it like MIA, I know they've wanted to expand along that long stretch of land beside Wolverine Wildcat).

[EagleEye]

I see it as a good thing money wise, but they now also have an opinion on what is done to the parks. that could be good or bad, which only time will tell.