Six Flags, former Elitch Gardens owner, files for Chapter 11 - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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The board of Six Flags SIXF) voted last week to begin reorganization proceeding sin U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Districtof Delaware. The companyt listed assets of $3.03 billion and debtsa of $2.36 billion in its filing. Cascade Investments, the investmen firm for Microsoft founderBill Gates, owns 11.1 percenf of the voting securities in New York-based Six the largest share, bankruptcyt documents show. Six Flags has 97.7 million shares of common stockand 1.1 million sharesw of preferred stock. "The current managemengt team inheriteda $2.
4 billion debt load that cannot be sustained, particularly in these challenging financia markets," said Mark Shapiro, president and CEO of Six in a statement. "A a result, we are cleaninyg up the past and positioning the companh for futuregrowth ... Followingg a record year of performancein 2008, whichy completed the three-year turnaround of our system-wide park this action to clean up the balance sheet paves the way for a full revival of the Shapiro said.
Elitch Gardens had operatede for more than a centuryg at a northwest Denver The old Elitch Gardens shut downin 1994, and a new versiojn of the amusement park openef a year later in downtown The local Gurtler family and its financial partnerds sold the new park to Premie r Parks Inc. in 1996 for $65 million. It became Six Flagws Elitch Gardens twoyears later, when Premiefr acquired Six Flags Inc. and changed its corporate name to Six Six Flags soldoff Elitch's and other propertiex in 2007 in a series of transactions that left the Denvetr attraction in the hands of CNL Incomre Properties Inc., a real estate investmentt trust based in Orlando, Fla.
CNL reportedlyu paid $312 million for the properties. CNL arranged for Parc Managementt LLC of Florida tomanage Elitch's. Six Flagse now operates about 20 North Americabnamusement parks.