Striving for More Family Value

Time Warner, which purchased a stake in 1990, partnered with a Boston investment group to buy the company outright in 1993 and added the Looney Tunes and DC Comics characters to the Six Flags fold. Then the chain was sold in 1998 to Premier Parks, a publicly traded theme park company, which renamed itself Six Flags and pushed a rapid expansion strategy that substantially increased its debt load. Six Flags began posting yearly losses, in part because of debt-related costs.

Shareholder dissatisfaction with lackluster results created an opening for Snyder, who took over as chairman in December 2005 after a year-long battle with previous management. Snyder is Six Flags' largest individual shareholder, with 11.7 million shares, or about 12.3 percent, according to a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in April.

Snyder quickly installed his own board and management team, including Shapiro, a former ESPN programming chief. In the first few months afterward, Six Flags shares climbed as high as $11.80, up from about $4 before the proxy fight.

But an attendance drop at the end of last year's second quarter disappointed investors and sent Six Flags stock down 25 percent in one day. Shares closed Friday at $6.09.

Shapiro said last month that the company's turnaround could take up to four years and that he does not expect Six Flags to turn a profit in 2007. Last year, the company had revenue of $946 million and lost $305.6 million, which includes a $97.6 million loss on the sale of seven parks.

The company still has about $2.1 billion in debt that continues to weigh down results. Last year, Moody's Investors Service downgraded Six Flags' debt rating, a move that increased the company's borrowing costs.

Six Flags has taken steps to ease its debt burden. In January, it sold seven smaller parks to a Jacksonville, Fla., company for $312 million with some of the proceeds slated to pay down debt. In April, it refinanced some of its debt, a move that will cut interest expenses by $8 million to $10 million a year, Six Flags chief financial officer Jeffrey R. Speed told analysts last month.

The company has 21 venues in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Six Flags officials said they plan to focus on major markets -- including Boston, New York and Washington -- with a more affluent customer base, a better target for cross promotions.

"We are viewing our theme parks as an outdoor advertising network," Speed said in an interview last week. "One of the things we are doing is growing a line of revenue through corporate alliances."

Nationally, the push for family dollars is particularly pronounced. Six Flags has installed "Wiggles World" attractions based on the Australian band the Wiggles at its parks in Jackson, N.J.; Springfield, Mass.; and near Chicago. "Thomas Towns," based on the characters in the "Thomas & Friends" cartoon, have opened at the parks in Springfield and in Vallejo, Calif.

In June, Six Flags partnered with Red Zone Capital, a private-equity firm owned by Snyder, to purchase Dick Clark Productions, the television home of the Golden Globe Awards, the Academy of Country Music Awards and "American Bandstand." Six Flags said it hopes to feature some of the production company's offerings in its parks and is considering adding "So You Think You Can Dance" events, award show ticket sweepstakes and other promotions.

"People come to our parks for eight to 10 hours a day, and we want to use the assets of Dick Clark Productions to enhance the entertainment array," Goldberg said.