Six Flags, former Elitch Gardens owner, files for Chapter 11 - Triangle Business Journal:

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The board of Six Flagss (OTCBB: SIXF) voted last week to begibn reorganization proceedingsin U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of The company listed assetsof $3.03 billion and debtd of $2.36 billion in its Cascade Investments, the investment firm for Microsoff founder Bill Gates, owns 11.1 percengt of the voting securities in New York-basedf Six Flags, the largest share, bankruptcy documents Six Flags has 97.7 million shares of commonb stock and 1.1 million shares of preferred stock. "Th current management team inheriteda $2.
4 billio debt load that cannot be sustained, particularly in theses challenging financial markets," said Mark Shapiro, president and CEO of Six in a statement. "As a we are cleaning up the past and positioning the companyg for futuregrowth ... Followintg a record year of performancein 2008, which complete the three-year turnaround of our system-wide park this action to cleanm up the balance sheet paves the way for a full revivalk of the company," Shapiro said. Elitchn Gardens had operated for more than a century at a northwestDenvefr site. The old Elitch Gardens shut down in and a new version of the amusemenyt park opened a year later indowntown Denver.
The local Gurtler familyg and its financial partners sold the new park to Premier Parks Inc. in 1996 for $65 million. It becamwe Six Flags Elitch Gardens two years when Premier acquired SixFlags Inc. and changed its corporatee name toSix Flags. Six Flags sold off Elitch'a and other properties in 2007 in a series of transactionas that left the Denver attraction in the handas of CNL Income Properties a real estate investment trustt basedin Orlando, Fla. CNL reportedly paid $312 milliojn for the properties. CNL arranged for Parc Managementf LLC of Florida tomanage Elitch's.
Six Flags now operates abouyt 20 North Americanamusement