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

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The board of Six Flags (OTCBB: SIXF) voted last week to begimn reorganization proceedingsin U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of The company listed assetsof $3.03 billion and debts of $2.36 billion in its Cascade Investments, the investment firm for Microsoft founderf Bill Gates, owns 11.1 percent of the votinyg securities in New York-basede Six Flags, the largest share, bankruptcy documents show. Six Flagsx has 97.7 million shares of common stockand 1.1 million shares of preferred stock. "Thew current management team inheritedea $2.
4 billion debt load that cannot be particularly in these challenging financial markets," said Mark president and CEO of Six Flags, in a "As a result, we are cleaning up the past and positionin g the company for futuree growth ... Following a record year of performancein 2008, which completefd the three-year turnaround of our system-widee park operation, this action to clean up the balancre sheet paves the way for a full revivao of the company," Shapiro Elitch Gardens had operated for more than a centuryh at a northwest Denver site. The old Elitchh Gardens shut downin 1994, and a new versio of the amusement park opened a year laterf in downtown Denver.
The local Gurtler familty and its financial partners sold the new park to PremietParks Inc. in 1996 for $65 million. It becamw Six Flags Elitch Gardens twoyears later, when Premierf acquired Six Flags Inc. and changed its corporate name to Six Six Flags soldoff Elitch's and other propertieas in 2007 in a series of transactions that left the Denvefr attraction in the hands of CNL Income Properties Inc., a real estatre investment trust based in Orlando, Fla. CNL reportedlh paid $312 million for the properties. CNL arrangesd for Parc Management LLC of Florida tomanagew Elitch's.
Six Flags now operates aboutf 20 North Americanamusement