The parent company of Knott’s Berry Farm and Six Flags Magic Mountain has no plans to close any of its 42 theme parks and water parks while the North American amusement park chain continues to weigh the potential sale of underperforming parks.
“We have no plans to close parks,” Six Flags Director of Communications Gary Rhodes said via email.
Six Flags CEO Richard Zimmerman was asked about a potential asset sale last week during a call with Wall Street analysts.
“Every park in our portfolio has a role,” Zimmerman said on the call. “If it plays its role right, these are irreplaceable assets. But we also want to make sure that we’re investing to drive growth across the combined portfolio.”
Zimmerman declined to put a timeframe on any potential asset sale during his discussion with analysts.
“We’re going to be very diligent and work methodically through what we think is possible and what would make sense as we think about our capital structure and capital allocation priorities,” Zimmerman said on the call.
Six Flags floated the possibility of selling some theme parks as part of Project Accelerate during the company’s latest quarterly earnings call on Nov. 6.
Six Flags listed “Portfolio Optimization” as a key objective as part of an investor presentation and promised a “comprehensive review of the portfolio to evaluate the potential divestiture of non-core assets to help reduce leverage.”
“In layman’s terms, Six Flags will review its roster of parks and may consider selling some of them,” according to Attractions Magazine.
The comprehensive portfolio review includes excess and undeveloped land, Zimmerman said on the call.
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Six Flags considers the sale of some theme parks
“This is an exercise that we have undertaken in the past and one that is focused on optimizing our asset base, narrowing our focus and helping us accelerate our planned reduction in leverage,” Zimmerman said on the call.
Six Flags and Cedar Fair merged in July following a review by the Department of Justice that allowed the newly combined company to keep Magic Mountain and Knott’s Berry Farm — which compete in the Southern California marketplace.
The combined portfolio of Cedar Fair and Six Flags includes 27 amusement parks and 15 water parks in the United States, Canada and Mexico that attract 48 million visitors a year.
Six Flags owns seven of the Top 20 North American amusement parks based on attendance, according to the TEA/AECOM annual report.
The chain’s largest parks include Buena Park’s Knott’s Berry Farm (4.2 million annual visitors), Ohio’s Cedar Point (4 million), Ohio’s Kings Island (3.5 million), Valencia’s Six Flags Magic Mountain (3.4 million), Canada’s Wonderland (3.2 million), Illinois’ Six Flags Great America (3 million) and New Jersey’s Six Flags Great Adventure (2.5 million), according to the TEA/AECOM report.