Cedar Fair Earnings Release

[jzarley]

This has been out for several days, but hadn't seen it posted here yet...

Cedar Fair announced their Q4 and 2005 whole year financial information. Bottom line, it was a good year overall:

--Total Revenue +5%

--Attendance +1%

--In park spending +3%

--Out-of-park spending (hotels) +12%

The two most impressive stats, however, were:

1) A Q4 quarterly profit. This was the first time the company had ever posted a profit in the 4th quarter.

2) Net operating income (profit in its most basic definition) increased 17%. That's very impressive on only a total revenue gain of 5%...that speaks very well of management and their ability to control costs.

However, Cedar Point lost attendance again this year (–3%) to 3.3 million.

On the conference call, Kinsler mentioned the sale of Paramount Parks in his opening remarks. He didn't give much insight, other than they had a responsibility to their shareholders to look at all growth opportunities, including PP. However, there would be no decisions about placing a bid unless full due diligence was completed and it made financial sense for the shareholders. Just the basic "safe" line any smart CEO of a public company would give.

There were the fewest analyst questions I've ever heard in any earnings call!

Anyway, here's where you can find the company's full release:

http://www.cedarfair.com/ir/press_releases/index.cfm