...Apollo is simply saving face by walking away from a deal doomed to be voted down.

Cedar Fair was an Income Investor newsletter service recommendation from June 2005 through the summer of 2008. However, the company's burdensome debt after acquiring CBS's (NYSE: CBS) Paramount chain, and its inability to cash in on logical synergies, grounded its potential.

The amusement-park landscape has changed in recent years. Private equity firms and asset managers have acquired sputtering parks. Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) has assembled a global collection of parks through its investing arms, which may one day even rival Disney(NYSE: DIS)....

http://www.fool.com/...n-the-rise.aspx

"...and its inability to cash in on logical synergies, grounded its potential."

I wonder which synergies Rick is referring to here? Cost savings...marketing strategies...technology...something else? (Or, all of the above?)

The inability to take advantage of pretty intuitive synergistic opportunities was always one of my biggest criticisms of Paramount (/Viacom/CBS). However, I hadn't really thought that about Cedar Fair--mostly because I didn't see that they had the same types of synergies in play. (At least, from a media franchising crossover potential...)