In recent weeks, Six Flags had proposed a new lease arrangement to the fair board that would have enhanced the viability and future of the park. Unfortunately, those proposals were not accepted and the park will cease operations and the company will move expeditiously to re-locate employees and several of the more than 40 rides and attractions to one of its 13 other markets.

In an interesting contrast with Six Flags’ statement, this article claims that all rides are property of the Kentucky Fair Board.  Harold Workman, president of the Ky Fair Board said that the removal of the Chang roller coaster in September of last year was approved by him after Six Flags presented him plans to expand the water park by removing Chang.  With the way the contracted is worded, the Chang roller coaster could have belonged to the Fair Board, since the ride was affixed to the ground.  He also claims that Six Flags proposed a deal to pay no rent for the remainder  of the nine year lease in exchange for some sort of profit-sharing deal.

update Feb. 10, 2010

The current rumor is that Compagnie des Alpes is in talks with the Kentucky State Fairgrounds about running the Kentucky Kingdom property.  CdA runs several theme parks in Europe including the Parc Asterix, Walibi parks, Bellewaerde, and Hellendoorn.  If the deal goes through, Kentucky Kingdom would be their first park in North America.

Mark Sharpiro, the CEO of Six Flags, has stated many times that this would be a difficult year with the shape of the economy and their debt taken on by previous management.  The company had a looming $300 million payment due in August.  Months ago the CEO announced to the company employees that the creditor would not budge on the due date for the $300 million payment, nor would they even meet in person to discuss it.

The previous management team of the company took on the massive debt of $2.4 billion from 1998 – 2005 buying up smaller parks and building new coasters.  Later in 2005 Washington Redskins football team owner Dan Snyder took controlling position of the company as the chairman and installed a new management team, including current CEO Mark Shapiro.  Experts expect the current management team will remain in place.

Today the stock opened at 11 cents a share, down over 50% from the closing price on Friday.  Looks like I won’t be selling my shares for a long time.