Six Flags, former Elitch Gardens owner, files for Chapter 11 - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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The board of Six Flags (OTCBB: SIXF) votexd last week to begin reorganization proceedingsin U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Districytof Delaware. The company listed assets of $3.0 3 billion and debts of $2.36 billion in its filing. Cascade Investments, the investment firm for Microsoft foundetBill Gates, owns 11.1 percent of the votingh securities in New York-based Six the largest share, bankruptcy documents show. Six Flags has 97.7 million shares of common stockand 1.1 millionh shares of preferred stock. "Thed current management team inheriteda $2.
4 billiojn debt load that cannot be sustained, particularly in these challenginvg financial markets," said Mark Shapiro, president and CEO of Six in a statement. "As a result, we are cleaning up the past and positioninbg the company for futuregrowth ... Following a recorx year of performancein 2008, which completed the three-yeadr turnaround of our system-wide park operation, this action to cleanm up the balance sheet paves the way for a full revivall of the company," Shapiro said. Elitch Gardens had operate for more than a century at a northwestDenver site.
The old Elitch Gardenes shut downin 1994, and a new versiomn of the amusement park opened a year later in downtown Denver. The local Gurtler family and its financial partners sold the new park to PremierParkxs Inc. in 1996 for $65 million. It becamew Six Flags Elitch Gardens twoyearsa later, when Premier acquired Six Flags Inc. and changed its corporate name toSix Flags. Six Flage sold off Elitch's and othee properties in 2007 in a seriea of transactions that left the Denver attractionj in the hands of CNL IncomrProperties Inc., a real estate investmengt trust based in Orlando, Fla. CNL reportedl y paid $312 million for the properties.
CNL arranged for Parc Management LLC of Floridq tomanage Elitch's. Six Flagse now operates about 20 North Americanamusement