Cedar Fair Entertainment Company SOLD to Apollo Management

[DejaVu2001]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 02668.html
http://www.sanduskyregister.com/article ... 502985.txt

Cedar Fair is set to be acquired by Apollo Management for $700 million. Not sure what to think about this because I have absolutely no idea what Apollo is, but they do not seem to have any prior theme park experience.

From the Cedar Fair website: http://www.cedarfair.com/ir/press_relea ... ory_id=210

[SFaddiction84]

It says Cedar Fair will be a Whole Owned Unit of Apollo Management, so i wonder if they will still run as themselves, just be completely owned by someone else? Maybe this wont mean anything! From what it looks like, Apollo does not buy companies to change them, rather, it buys them and assists in owning it to help it get BETTER!

I think this could bring great things

[w00dland]

700 million? Must come with all their debt too, otherwise its a freakin steal.

[monsterfan99]

^It does indeed come with the debt. The deal, in all told, was worth 2.4 billion. That alone shows how big the price was on the Paramount parks.

[FParker185]

It is worth noting that before Cedar Fair bought paramount they were already pretty debt laden, was something like 500,000,000-700,000,000 worth of debt before they acquired the Paramount chain.

Overall, while no one can say for sure, I think this will be a positive thing for Cedar Fair. Some say that the fact that Apollo has never been in the amusement park biz is a bad thing, but in actuality it's a good thing, they have no idea what to do so they will more than likely leave the current management intact for a while, so not a whole lot should change. I'm sure apollo will keep an eye on the books and probably make some minor changes over the next few years, I don't think they'll meddle to much as Cedar Fair never lost their profitability, they just weren't making enough to cover interest payments/overall payments on their debt.

Another nice this is Apollo will be turning Cedar Fair into a private company, it will no longer be public, so not having to answer to stockholders makes things easier, they can go and do what they think is best for the chain rather than having do stuff just to make stockholders happy. Also Apollo doesn't seem like the kind of company to buy companies, streamline them and sell at a huge profit, other things they own and have owned for some time is Harrah's, AMC Theaters and the company that owns Dominick's food stores here in Chicago.

Of course time will tell, and that's the only way to know, but for right now it looks like Cedar Fair will be in a better position now rather than before.