hey guys,

i was just reading a forum about past owners of ki and a question popped into my mind about the sell to Cedar Fair. when Kings Island was sold, were there any companies other than cf that were interested in purchasing pki?

I'd buy it for the price of around $20.

I always wondered that myself.

Although I'm glad Six Flags never bought the park, I would have enjoyed the Mr. Six dance parties by the bandstand off International Street.

The only other company i would of seen buying KI would of been Disney. They have the money.

In my simple and probably flawed reasoning, I imagine there were other buyers (though probably not Disney or Universal caliber). Again, my instinct tells me that since Cedar Fair paid a lot for them. It occurs to me that if there were "haggling" room, it would've happened to a greater degree. Instead, it seems like Cedar Fair was out-bidding someone, or at least that they expected others to bid and thus placed a high offer right away.

I could be wrong, but it seems almost everyone in the industry was absolutely staggered at what Cedar Fair was willing to pay (and, by the way, is still paying) to acquire the parks. The impression of much of the community that I witnessed was that they were paying more than the parks were worth. If that's true, then I can't imagine them doing it unless they had to.

Another thing to consider is that CBS said all or nothing. Either take all of the "Paramount" Parks off their hands, or they were uninterested. If that weren't the case, I feel like Cedar Fair would've ended up with Kings Island and Canada's Wonderland, but no more. As it was, the all-or-nothing deal made any acquisition of any of the Paramount Parks by a smaller, more family-oriented company like Palace or Herschend unimaginable. If they were sold separately, those smaller companies might've showed an interest in Carowinds or Great America. Maybe there would even be a Six Flags Kings Dominion! As Terpy says, what is, is. But with all-or-nothing, only large corporations need apply.

Wasn't Apollo looking shortly after CF bought the parks....there was talk about it on here a while back...I just tried to search...nothing. However there are lots of hints to it, Terpy said: "That the only reason the Apollo sale failed is because unit holders are local Sandusky people who want Cedar Fair to remain a public and local company" -"Don't Wear Our Shirts" Terpy: May 31st 2010.

I coulda done quote thingys but I don't feel like it...

Apollo was attempting to do a leveraged buyout of Cedar Fair. They offered $11.50 per unit of Cedar Fair. Many unitholders balked at that low price, and Q Funding came in and championed against the Apollo take over. Needless to say, that the $11.50 price now seems really low, given that the units have been trading around $22 to $23 recently.

I think a good group for the parks would be Blackstone group. They seem to be doing a really good job with the former Busch parks.

I just really want to see what fresh blood in

CF management will bring to our parks.

Hopefully decisions will be based merit and worth and less on personal desires.

If not mistaken, Apollo was a Private Equity Firm that would have purchased the parks, closed the under-performing assets, bolstered the profitable ones and sold them off one-by-one.

There was actually widespread speculation that Apollo was going to also acquire Six Flags and merge the two companies. Most importantly for Mr. Kinzel and a few other select individuals, those particular parties, and no others, were to retain their positions with the company and receive generous parting gifts if separated, while continuing to hold some equity in the new Cedar Fair. Meanwhile, other unitholders would be forced to sell out at $11.50 a unit, provided the sale was approved. When it was not, the partnership had to pay a huge fee to Apollo.

While Kinzel & Co. were loud and whiny about having to pay to defend the company against Q's lawsuits (most of which were either settled in Q's favor or FUN lost), you heard no complaints about having to pay Apollo a breakup fee when the Kinzel friendly but unitholder unfriendly proposed "merger" failed.