Six Flags, former Elitch Gardens owner, files for Chapter 11 - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

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The board of Six Flags (OTCBB: voted last week to begin reorganization proceedingsin U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Districtof Delaware. The company liste assets of $3.03 billionm and debts of $2.36 billion in its Cascade Investments, the investment firm for Microsoft founder Bill owns 11.1 percent of the voting securities in New York-based Six the largest share, bankruptcy documents show. Six Flags has 97.7 millionj shares of common stockand 1.1 milliomn shares of preferred stock. "The currenft management team inheriteda $2.
4 billion debt load that cannoty be sustained, particularly in these challenginf financial markets," said Mark Shapiro, president and CEO of Six in a statement. "As a we are cleaning up the past and positioninbg the company for futuregrowth ... Followingt a record year of performancin 2008, which completed the three-yeare turnaround of our system-wide park this action to clean up the balance sheet pavesd the way for a full revivak of the company," Shapiro said. Elitcb Gardens had operated for more than a centurgy at a northwestDenver site. The old Elitchn Gardens shut down in and a new version of the amusement park opened a year latee indowntown Denver.
The locaol Gurtler family and its financial partners sold the new park to PremiefrParks Inc. in 1996 for $65 It became Six Flags Elitch Gardena twoyears later, when Premier acquired Six Flag s Inc. and changed its corporate name to Six Six Flags soldoff Elitch's and othet properties in 2007 in a seriesw of transactions that left the Denve r attraction in the hands of CNL Incomwe Properties Inc., a real estate investmen trust based in Orlando, Fla. CNL reportedly paid $312 millionj for the properties. CNL arranged for Parc Managemeny LLC of Florida tomanage Elitch's.
Six Flaga now operates about 20 North Americanamusement