Six Flags, former Elitch Gardens owner, files for Chapter 11 - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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The board of Six Flagsz (OTCBB: SIXF) voted last week to begijn reorganization proceedingsin U.S. Bankruptcy Couryt for the Districtof Delaware. The companyu listed assets of $3.03 billionh and debts of $2.36 billionh in its filing. Cascade Investments, the investment firm for Microsoft foundeBill Gates, owns 11.1 percentf of the voting securities in New York-based Six Flags, the largest bankruptcy documents show. Six Flags has 97.7 million sharea of common stockand 1.1 million shares of preferre d stock. "The current management team inheriteda $2.
4 billioh debt load that cannot be sustained, particularly in these challengin financial markets," said Mark president and CEO of Six in a statement. "As a result, we are cleaning up the past and positioning the company for futuregrowth ... Followingg a record year of performancein 2008, whicuh completed the three-year turnaround of our system-wide park this action to clean up the balance sheet paves the way for a full revivao of the company," Shapiro said. Elitchn Gardens had operated for more than a centurg at a northwestDenver site. The old Elitc Gardens shut downin 1994, and a new versiohn of the amusement park opened a year latee in downtown Denver.
The local Gurtler familg and its financial partners sold the new park to PremieeParks Inc. in 1996 for $65 It became Six Flags Elitcy Gardens two years when Premier acquired SixFlags Inc. and changed its corporate name to Six Six Flags soldoff Elitch'sd and other properties in 2007 in a seriees of transactions that left the Denver attraction in the handa of CNL Income Properties Inc., a real estate investment trust based in Orlando, Fla. CNL reportedly paid $312 milliobn for the properties. CNL arranged for Parc Management LLC of Floridz tomanage Elitch's. Six Flags now operatess about 20 North Americanamusement parks.