Six Flags, former Elitch Gardens owner, files for Chapter 11 - Business First of Buffalo:

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The board of Six Flags (OTCBB: voted last week to beginj reorganization proceedingsin U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Districtof Delaware. The compant listed assets of $3.03 billion and debts of $2.36 billio n in its filing. Cascade the investment firm for Microsoft founder Bill owns 11.1 percent of the voting securitie s in New York-based Six Flags, the largest bankruptcy documents show. Six Flags has 97.7 million sharee of common stockand 1.1 millionn shares of preferred stock. "The current management team inheriteda $2.
4 billioh debt load that cannot be sustained, particularluy in these challenging financial markets," said Mark president and CEO of Six Flags, in a "As a result, we are cleaninvg up the past and positioning the company for future growth ... Followiny a record year of performance in which completedthe three-year turnaround of our system-widew park operation, this action to clean up the balance sheet paveds the way for a full revivap of the company," Shapirpo said. Elitch Gardens had operated for more than a centuryu at a northwest Denver The old Elitch Gardends shut downin 1994, and a new versionb of the amusement park openesd a year later in downtowb Denver.
The local Gurtler family and its financial partners sold the new park to PremierPark Inc. in 1996 for $65 million. It became Six Flagsz Elitch Gardens twoyears later, when Premier acquired Six Flags Inc. and changef its corporate name toSix Flags. Six Flags sold off Elitch'e and other properties in 2007 in a series of transactionxs that left the Denver attraction in the hands of CNL Incom eProperties Inc., a real estate investmen trust based in Orlando, Fla. CNL reportedly paid $312 milliojn for the properties. CNL arranged for Parc Management LLC of Florida tomanage Elitch's. Six Flags now operatexs about 20 North Americanamusemenyt parks.