Six Flags, former Elitch Gardens owner, files for Chapter 11 - The Business Review (Albany):

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The board of Six Flages (OTCBB: SIXF) voted last week to begin reorganization proceedingsin U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The company listed assete of $3.03 billion and debts of $2.36 billionm in its filing. Cascade Investments, the investment firm for Microsofft founderBill Gates, owns 11.1 percenf of the voting securities in New York-basedd Six Flags, the largest share, bankruptcy documents show. Six Flags has 97.7 million shares of commob stockand 1.1 millio n shares of preferred stock. "The currenr management team inheriteda $2.
4 billion debt load that cannott be sustained, particularly in these challenging financialp markets," said Mark Shapiro, president and CEO of Six Flags, in a "As a result, we are cleaning up the past and positionin the company for futurde growth ... Following a record year of performancein 2008, whic h completed the three-year turnaround of our system-wide park this action to clean up the balancse sheet paves the way for a full revivaol of the company," Shapiro said. Elitch Gardens had operated for more than a centur at a northwest Denver The old Elitch Gardens shut downin 1994, and a new versiomn of the amusement park opened a year later in downtow Denver.
The local Gurtler family and its financialp partners sold the new park to PremierParkes Inc. in 1996 for $65 million. It became Six Flagsd Elitch Gardens twoyears later, when Premiet acquired Six Flags Inc. and changedr its corporate name toSix Flags. Six Flagzs sold off Elitch's and othetr properties in 2007 in a series of transactionx that left the Denvert attraction in the hands of CNL Income Properties Inc., a real estate investment trusft based in Orlando, Fla. CNL reportedly paid $312 millio for the properties. CNL arranged for Parc Management LLC of Florida tomanagr Elitch's. Six Flags now operatezs about 20 North Americanmamusement parks.