Cedar Fair Earnings Release

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