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View Full Version : What if Disney bought Six Flags?



DBJ
08-07-2003, 06:47 AM
No joke, a rumor floating around.

"Shares of Six Flags Inc. rose Wednesday on a rumor that Walt Disney Co. was interested in buying the company, traders said."

from sixflagsnews.com, btw.

If Disney did buy out Six Flags, the parks might improve dramatically, but hopefully they would continually re-invest in new attractions. For all the negatives on how many of the Six Flags parks are managed, you can't deny that they certainly add many attractions across their 40 parks.

pouncingpluto
08-07-2003, 06:54 AM
Well.. I wonder if that would harm interest in the current Disney parks.

For example, if Disney bought Six Flags, you can bet they'd take on some measure of Disney flavor. Instead of Looney Toons characters, you'd find Disney characters, merchandise, etc. Perhaps retheming of the kiddie lands. While those changes wouldn't make the Six Flags parks comparable to Disney parks in the eyes of those of us who are Disney afficianados, the changes would likely make many parents of small children feel like they have their own little version of Disneyland/World in their own backyard and lessen their incentive to spend large sums of money to travel to something they may see as simply a bigger version.

lazyboy97O
08-07-2003, 08:04 AM
The only way I could see this as good is if Disney left Six Flags as a subsidary. That way they could clean up the parks, but not focus on them so much as to take away from the current Disney parks.

Icy Bacon
08-07-2003, 10:05 AM
I don't believe any of that one slight bit to be honest. Six Flags is going downhill fast, and if Disney bought the company the only thing I could see them doing is putting in some better management and selling it off again. Also, looking at the NYSE value chart for PKS there doesn't seem to be any jump at all.
A spokesman for Disney said the company doesn't comment on rumors. However, a source close to the company said there is no truth to the rumor. Six Flags didn't immediately return calls for comment.

olegc
08-07-2003, 11:51 AM
the rumor is somewhat believable - in that if you were the disney company and you needed to show added revenue - yet not increase costs at existing assets - the only way to do this is through expansion. if you're not willing to build your own places of expansion, you acquire someone else to grow your overall customer base and make your revenue dollar amount larger.

Notice I said grow your overall base. This is a quick fix (2 or 3 year) ploy that most companies do in order to show Wall Street that they are still about about growth. But - that can't last for more than 10 years, particularly in the theme park biz. So - the next step would be a sell off in order to show Wall Street that Eisner knows how to protect assets that are making money.

What if Six Flags bought out the theme park divisions of Disney and then Disney reaps in licensing revenue, without incurring costs. And then WDI could be contracted out (as they have been at Tokyo DisneySea) for awesome attractions. Think about that one!

TecTalker2K
08-07-2003, 11:59 AM
Well, in stead of three parks that are screwed up, there will be a lot more.