 Alrighty, let's talk about it, there are so many videos, including mine out there, going over all the details about this merge, but I thought I would slow down a little bit and discuss more so why this is happening. So for a lot of us, we know that Cedar Fair and Six Flags have a lot of differences in terms of park management. And how these two park chains are managed is extremely different. Now one chain has been managed in very limited CEO change and a lot of experience in the amusement and hospitality industry, whereas the other chain has been managed in kind of a more sloppy way with a lot of CEO change and now some CEOs that have next to no experience in the hospitality industry. So I'm going to go over some of the details about why I think Cedar Fair and Six Flags are about to merge into a new company, Six Flags Entertainment Company, but let's go over some of the details. So a lot of you don't know this fact right here, but MarcoAxis is a website that takes essentially the company's financials, assets, and a lot of factors and determines their bankruptcy rate. So Six Flags was sitting at roughly a 56% likelihood of bankruptcy before the merge. Now after the merge, they're sitting down below around a 43% whereas Cedar Fair was at a 40% likelihood of bankruptcy before the merge and are now down to a 30% chance of bankruptcy after the merge. So I thought that was really interesting. It definitely gives a little insight to why these two companies have had so many talks. You look at even outside of Six Flags and Cedar Fair, there was talks between SeaWorld and Cedar Fair for a takeover as well. So a lot of these smaller regional chains, and I call them smaller of course next to Universal and Disney, but there's reasons there's talks like these going on and I wouldn't be surprised if we see some other merges take place as well. Economic tough times are approaching, no matter where you sit on the political spectrum. There are tough economic times approaching and it's funny though that I say that because it looks like both chains in their 2024 outlook reported an increase in season past sales, but I will touch on while that looks promising for those of you that paid attention to the very limited information we received on Q3 results for Six Flags and Cedar Fair, more specifically Cedar Fair, they did reveal that spending in park is down. So what that's showing you is people are a little less likely to spend extra cash on the leisure hospitality industry and they're buying those season passes and I know especially at Six Flags, ticket sales are exponentially down and I assume that's the case at Cedar Fair as well and season past sales are up and less spending in park, you know, it's removing a lot of that free cash flow that these parks have. So the return on investment on bigger investments is also coming down as well. So very concerning information if you're a regional theme park. So after those bankruptcy percentages, I want to go into a bit of the history of CEO. So I'll start with Six Flags and so for example, Six Flags went through 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 CEOs since 1998, okay, since 1998, Six CEO changes. So Kieran Burke, 1998 to 2005, Mark Shapiro, 2005 to 2010, Al Webber Jr, 2010 to 2012 and John Duffy, 2016 to 2017 and Jim Reed Anderson, 2012 to 2020. Salem, I know I'm butchering his name, I apologize, 2021 to present. Salem was and was the head of 11 different companies, none of which are in or were in the hospitality industry. So I find that really interesting, which some could argue he could bring a different aspect to the amusement industry and maybe that's why you see a lot of this tech coming to Six Flags that Cedar Fair seems to want to swoop up. But under Cedar Fair CEOs, this is where you see the strength and this is what creates those key differences in park management and how they're run. So no matter where you sit on the spectrum, I know a lot of people are calling me a Cedar Fair fanboy, but I'm sorry, you can't sit here and argue that there isn't significant differences between Cedar Fair and Six Flags in how they manage their park, the cleanliness and the attractiveness of those parks. And to me, my main argument is this right here. So Cedar Fair had Dick Kinzel from 1972 to 2012. Matt Weemit from 2012 to 2017 was 17 years experience for Disney prior to joining that team. Richard Zimmerman from 2017 to present with 30 years hospitality and entertainment experience. So a very strong, cohesive, smooth transitions between CEOs team that has happened at Cedar Fair and a very bumpy transition of CEOs at Six Flags with some who have no experience in the hospitality industry. So to me, it's very clear why Six Flags is and has been since 2019 and maybe even prior been looking for strong leadership. And this merge that is most likely going to take place. I know a lot of people are talking about federal regulations. I'm going to make a separate video about that because I'm going to explain why that's actually not going to get in the way. But I believe this merge is going to take place. I would be shocked to see the Six Flags shareholders vote against it. Again, Cedar Fair is unit holders, so we don't actually have a say in this matter outside of just selling our stocks. But Six Flags shareholders will vote on this. I can't see why they would vote no. I know shareholders of Six Flags have been very stressed under a lot of these leadership changes. And even in 2022, we're expressing discomfort with the current CEO and such little results taking place at the park. So I strongly believe this sale is going to, or not this sale, this merge is going to go forward. And if you're paying attention to the stockholders call and the events presentation, essentially what is going to happen is Cedar Fair's CEO and CFO are going to run the parks as they currently have been their own Cedar Fair parks. And they are looking to elevate the Six Flags brand under the Cedar Fair leadership. And what Salim and Six Flags are going to bring to the table is technology and innovation. So that's essentially how you're going to see the two companies run. And if they did not merge, this is why I believe I'm calling it the Six Flags downfall. I believe we would have seen Six Flags go chapter 11 in the next two to five years. I believe Six Flags, especially with some of their major parks like Magic Mountain and Six Flags, Great Adventure, with such significantly low attendance compared to prior COVID, it was inevitable that Six Flags as a chain was going to struggle. And I'm not sitting here and pretending like Cedar Fair wasn't experiencing the same. I know that Carowinds, Nottsbury Farm, and even Canada's Wonderland in the month of July, had some rough waves as well. I mean, it's been hard to avoid that Carowinds and Nottsbury Farm have had exponentially lower attendance this year as well. So these two parks, these two chains, they're not dumb. They see trends. They know trends. They have a lot of data analytics. And they probably were sensing the rough waters that are coming and merging is probably the smartest thing they can do as a company in terms of surviving the rough waters. It creates a lot of free cash flow. It creates a stronger brand and less competitiveness. So if they need to save money, they don't necessarily need to invest in such large scale projects, and they can focus more on infrastructure is and that's exactly what you were hearing in the stockholders call. So essentially, it on paper and to the business, this is probably the smartest thing they could have done to survive such tough economic times. So honestly, as much as I'm a naysayer and as much as I've been against it, it's definitely a really good thing if you want your your your local regional parks like Six Flags and Cedar Fair to survive. And unfortunately, it will lead to some unfortunate decisions again, you will see some Six Flags and a few Cedar Fair parks sold off. But I also think you're going to see some parks that maybe weren't that invested in suddenly become star children. I know the Texas parks were getting a lot of investments as of recent, and I think that's only going to get better. I think Kings Dominion might even start to become a star child as well as it needs to compete against Bush Gardens Williamsburg. But I think parks like Six Flags America and Worlds of Fun and Dourney Park might actually start to see some sort of dwindling in terms of investments and maybe even worse for some of them, not all the ones that I just mentioned, obviously. And I also think parks like Canada's Wonderland might suffer a little bit too that were used to be star children and now might fall down to the middle of the spectrum in terms of being so important. But now with all that said, hopefully that provided some clarification on the downfall of regional parks like Cedar Fair and Six Flags and why that led them to this decision and how that might actually provide some security for your local parks that you visit. So that's my opinions on it. I think it's clear as day that Six Flags was the weaker link in this and it's on paper that they were the weaker link on this, especially from Marco Axis, rating them a higher, much higher chance of bankruptcy. So I think this was a mandatory decision on Six Flags as part to essentially join forces with any brand and they wanted to go with Cedar Fair due to their strong leadership and experience in the hospitality and amusement industry and it only makes sense. So all the decisions that they've made in this merger make sense to me now. Six Flags is looking for strong leadership to elevate their park brands and they're going to bring technology to the table with Salim. So hopefully you enjoyed today's video. Definitely comment down below if you have any questions, comments or even like concerns over anything I said and I'll start trying to reply to as many people as possible. My last video's got a lot of comments so I couldn't keep up. But yeah, thanks so much. Hopefully I'm providing some further thought to this topic and yeah, have a good one guys. Bye.