News Cedar Fair Merges with Six Flags
- Thread starter horsesboy
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Executives are all CF with the exception of the "Integration Officer" who is from SF.
Give everything a few weeks and there'll be a wave of "retirements" from people who don't like their new boss(es) as well as musical park presidents as key roles are filled.
Give everything a few weeks and there'll be a wave of "retirements" from people who don't like their new boss(es) as well as musical park presidents as key roles are filled.
Quite possibly— especially the big four GAdv, GAm, MM, OT. Those parks need to get back on track and perform like CWon, KBF, CP, and KI again. All eight used to pull similar attendance but the four SF parks have really slipped.
No. Six Flags The Musical. He said what he meant.
Executives/management team are mostly from legacy Cedar Fair, but the board of directors is mostly legacy Six Flags:
Current board members by legacy company:
- Frymire - Cedar Fair
- Spiegel - Six Flags
- Carr - Cedar Fair
- Mason - Cedar Fair
- Bracey - Six Flags
- Mena - Six Flags
- Oliver - Six Flags
- Huang - Six Flags
- Rurchim - Six Flags
- Zimmerman - Cedar Fair
- Hanrahan. - Cedar Fair
- Bassoul - Six Flags
As we have seen with United Parks and Resorts, the board of directors can have significant influence over management and the direction of the company. I still think it is too early to say that the combined company will trend towards legacy Cedar Fair vs. legacy Six Flags.
Zimmerman holds the CEO position. My understanding is that they deal was give the old SF a a slight majority on the board while giving the old CF most of the corporate officers position as a sort of power balance allowing for the equality promised when the merger was announced. We will have to see how that function in reality.
I misread something, but everyone is correct. The C-Suite is mainly CF Alumni with 1 SF Alum.
Board members are not executives. The boards of neither Cedar Fair nor the legacy Six Flags exerted control or influence over day-to-day operations in the way that Sea World/United Parks chair Scott Ross has, so there's really no basis for thinking that would suddenly happen here.
I feel like people are really grasping for straws to try and justify fears about a Six Flags-ified Cedar Point or Kings Island.
Selim is executive chairman of the board, which indicates he will still have an active role in the company. If you read through the merger timeline, it was a major sticking point in getting this deal done.
Selim is just a puppet for H Partners Management. They were the largest stockholder in Six Flags before the merger and have been involved since the bankruptcy.
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I went to the Six Flags web site and reviewed the board of directors for the COMBINED Six Flags Board of Directors. There are 12 members on the Board. Six designated by the former Six Flags BOD and six designated by the former Cedar Fair BOD. It is evenly split between the former companies.
Bassoul: Six Flags
Hanrahan: Cedar Fair
Zimmerman: Cedar Fair
Ruchim: Six Flags
Huang: Six Flags
Olivet: Cedar Fair
Mena: Six Flags
Bracey: Six Flags
Manson: Cedar Fair
Carr: Cedar Fair
Spiegel: Six Flags
Frymire: Cedar Fair
How do you know that he'll actually will have an active role? Or that he'll be to dictate anything to Zimmerman, who has far more experience in the theme park industry? And why would Zimmerman have agreed to such an arrangement where he's in any way subordinate to Bassoul, given the gap in experience between the two?
You have to be able to answer those questions with something other than speculation to convince people that the legacy Cedar Fair parks are going to be run like the former Six Flags.
^Lookup the difference between Executive chairman and Non-executive chairman. Executive chairman means active role in the company.
Zimmerman reports to Bassoul and the rest of the board.
The background of the mergers timeline starts on page 76 of the following document. The Six Flags board said it was important for Selim to be the executive chairman of the board of the combined company.
https://otp.tools.investis.com/generic/sec/sec-show.aspx?ipage=17224713&Cik=0000701374&Type=PDF
Zimmerman reports to Bassoul and the rest of the board.
The background of the mergers timeline starts on page 76 of the following document. The Six Flags board said it was important for Selim to be the executive chairman of the board of the combined company.
https://otp.tools.investis.com/generic/sec/sec-show.aspx?ipage=17224713&Cik=0000701374&Type=PDF
An executive chairman leads the board. A CEO leads the company. There is a lot of variance that can occur within those respective roles and ranking is not automatically determined just by adding the "executive" title. And while the Board can hire and fire the CEO, Remember that half of the board is former Cedar Fair, and The Shareholders ultimately vote on who is the Executive Chairman, so Dingdong Bassoul could theoretically be voted out at the very first shareholder meeting post-merger, in favor of a CF alum, if former Cedar Fair shareholders band together to do so. I, for one, Will use my vote in attempt to oust him.
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So now the surcharge is out AND prices are coming down? Good on Cedar Fair, man.
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Can we get them to merge now with United Parks?
I always find it curious how in mergers, some things that feel like they should take longer to figure out (like F&B here because it takes a while to go through line items to discover costs and pricing, especially if they use different suppliers) get done fast, meanwhile things like the passes that feel like they should be done quickly so that everything is aligned (and general public that doesn’t follow the business dealings can learn SF and CF are one in the same now) gets put off.
AFAIK both Six Flags and Cedar Fair used Acesso for their ticketing, so I'm really surprised if there really will be a delay of another full season for integrating passes...
www.accesso.com
Theme Park & Attraction Ticketing Software | accesso
Ticketing, POS and guest management software built for theme parks, water parks and attractions. Sell online, manage gate entry, bundle passes and run F&B and retail from one platform.
www.accesso.com
Woof. That makes it more confusing to me as to why that wouldn't be something they address early. Only thing I can think of is that they feel that values are no where near each other and work needs to be done to level that out. Additionally that's got to be tough on them to figure out how to prevent 'cross market' pass purchasing due to the geography of their footprint, especially in the NE.AFAIK both Six Flags and Cedar Fair used Acesso for their ticketing, so I'm really surprised if there really will be a delay of another full season for integrating passes...
Theme Park & Attraction Ticketing Software | accesso
Ticketing, POS and guest management software built for theme parks, water parks and attractions. Sell online, manage gate entry, bundle passes and run F&B and retail from one platform.
I find it strange they’re not already honoring each others passes since at this point they’re selling tickets for a song to try and boost attendance, but I’m guessing the dining plans are the issue.