JANA PARTNERS, THIS IS NOT A THEME PARK FAILURE. THIS IS AN INVESTMENT-HORIZON FAILURE.

I have watched companies come and go in the theme park industry. I have watched great operators build extraordinary companies, and I have watched others destroy good businesses through bad decisions, excessive debt, inadequate reinvestment and, perhaps worst of all, impatience.

One thing I have learned is certain. You cannot operate a theme park with a Wall Street stopwatch.

That is why I find the latest development surrounding Six Flags so troubling and, frankly, so predictable.

JANA Partners and its investor group acquired an approximately 9% economic interest in Six Flags in October 2025. Now, following disappointing second-quarter results, JANA is reportedly calling for Six Flags to retain an investment banker and explore a sale of the company.

My question is very simple: “What did they think they were buying?”

The problems at Six Flags were not hidden. They were not buried somewhere deep inside a confidential financial statement. Those of us who know this industry have been discussing them for years.

Six Flags endured a disastrous strategic period under former CEO Selim Bassoul, when management intentionally pursued fewer guests at substantially higher prices in an effort to “preimmunize” the Six Flags product. Attendance suffered, the relationship with the traditional Six Flags customer was damaged, and rebuilding that relationship was never going to happen overnight.

Then came the merger with Cedar Fair. The combination was presented as an opportunity to create a stronger company through scale, cost efficiencies, revenue opportunities, and significant synergies. But mergers look much easier on PowerPoint presentations than they do when you actually have to integrate dozens of parks, thousands of employees, operating cultures, pricing structures, technology systems, and billions of dollars of debt. Sometimes when you combine two companies, you do not eliminate their problems. As we have seen, you combine their problems.

Today, Six Flags is carrying approximately $5 billion of debt before debt issuance adjustments. During the first six months of 2026 alone, interest expense approached $200 million.

Think about that number. Nearly $200 million going toward interest in six months.

Every dollar required to service debt is a dollar competing with rides, attractions, maintenance, technology, food facilities, landscaping, employee training, and the thousand other things necessary to keep a theme park fresh and competitive.

Six Flags has already begun doing what I have said for some time it would eventually have to do, which is reduce the portfolio.

The company agreed to sell seven parks for approximately $331 million, including Six Flags St. Louis, Worlds of Fun, Valleyfair, Michigan’s Adventure, Great Escape, Schlitterbahn Galveston, and La Ronde.

I would not be surprised to see additional portfolio rationalization. But there is an important distinction.

Six Flags can sell assets to repair its balance sheet. It cannot sell its way back to greatness. Eventually, it has to operate its way back.

That requires something that activist investors and private-equity-style financial owners sometimes have great difficulty accepting. Time.

Six Flags needs time to repair its balance sheet. Time to rebuild attendance. Time to restore the relationship with its customers. Time to determine which parks belong in the long-term portfolio. Time to stabilize management. Time to improve food, retail, and guest service. Time to invest intelligently in attractions. And time to make families believe once again that the experience they receive is worth the increasingly significant cost of visiting a theme park.

I have said repeatedly that turning Six Flags around could require five years of TLC, discipline, and consistent management. Not five months. Not five quarters. Five years.

Anyone performing serious due diligence before acquiring a major position in Six Flags should have understood that.

When JANA announced its investment, it brought considerable attention by including Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce as an investor. Kelce certainly brings celebrity, enormous public visibility, and a personal connection to amusement parks.

But celebrity does not operate theme parks. Nor should celebrity participation ever be confused with specialized industry knowledge or investment due diligence.

Interestingly, Kelce was recently identified by Texas securities regulators as one of the victims of an entirely unrelated multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. He did nothing wrong. He was a victim. I mention it only because it reinforces an important point. Sophisticated-looking investments and impressive people attached to them do not eliminate the need for extraordinary due diligence.

And Six Flags required extraordinary due diligence. This was never a quick turnaround. That brings us to the larger issue facing our industry.

I increasingly question whether certain financial investors really understand what they are buying when they enter the theme park business. A theme park is not a software company. It is not a portfolio of securities.

You cannot simply reduce headcount, squeeze expenses, increase prices, manufacture an EBITDA improvement, and expect the customer never to notice. The customer notices everything. And eventually they vote with their feet.

That is where financial engineering can become an albatross around the neck of a theme park company.

Private capital itself is not inherently bad. There have been successful investments. Blackstone's involvement with Merlin and its earlier investment in Universal Orlando demonstrate that financial capital, combined with capable operators, adequate reinvestment, and a long-term strategy can create enormous value.

But there is a tremendous difference between investing in a business and extracting from a business. When leverage becomes too great, debt service competes with capital expenditures.

I have seen that when the investment horizon becomes too short, quarterly results compete with long-term strategy. Then, financial engineering becomes more important than operating excellence and the spreadsheet starts running the park. And that is when trouble begins.

Look at what is happening around the industry today. Labor costs have risen dramatically. Qualified seasonal workers remain difficult to recruit in many markets. Insurance costs have increased. Utilities have increased. Food costs have increased. Construction costs have increased. Ride components, merchandise, and equipment are affected by tariffs and international supply-chain issues. And now, interest expense has made financing major capital projects more costly.

Weather has become an increasingly significant operating variable, with extreme heat, storms, flooding, and other events capable of disrupting entire operating periods.

On top of this, energy prices remain another concern. Geopolitical instability continues to influence travel and consumer confidence. School calendars have compressed portions of the traditional summer operating season. And perhaps most importantly, the cost of taking a family to a theme park has become a serious household expenditure. Admission. Parking. Food. Beverages. Merchandise. Hotels. And the transportation costs to get there. It adds up very quickly.

There is a limit to how much operators can continue passing increased costs to the guest before the guest finally says, enough.

Yet despite all these pressures, I do not believe the theme park industry is broken. Far from it.

The industry overall is performing reasonably well, not spectacularly everywhere, but certainly not collapsing.

Look at Disney. Its Parks & Experiences businesses continue producing enormous revenues and operating income, while Disney continues planning billions of dollars of future investment.

At Universal, Epic Universe represents one of the largest theme park investments ever undertaken in the United States. Whatever its short-term attendance dynamics, Comcast has demonstrated its willingness to make enormous long-term bets on the theme park business.

Look at Dollywood. Rather than retreating, Dollywood continues investing. Its new Night Flight Expedition represents an investment exceeding $60 million, the largest single attraction investment in the company’s history.

What do Disney, Universal and Dollywood understand? The product comes first. They understand that yesterday's great ride eventually becomes today's old ride.

Most importantly, they understand something financial engineers sometimes forget. The guest experience creates the financial result. The financial result does not create the guest experience.

Six Flags can recover. But it will not happen overnight. The company has made mistakes. Previous management made mistakes. Expectations surrounding the Cedar Fair merger were aggressive. The resulting company inherited enormous complexity and substantial financial obligations.

But in my opinion, another total sale transaction does not magically eliminate those realities. Selling Six Flags to another owner does not suddenly remove billions of dollars of debt. Changing the name on the shareholder register does not repair deteriorating infrastructure. An investment banker cannot manufacture attendance. And a leveraged transaction cannot make a family love an amusement park.

Six Flags was once one of the great iconic names of the American amusement industry. For years, it represented roller coasters, thrills, family entertainment, and regional amusement parks across America.

Today, it resembles a ship that has spent too many years changing captains, changing direction, and sailing through financial storms. But a ship experiencing rough seas does not necessarily need to be auctioned.

It needs a captain. A course. Discipline. Investment. And it needs time.

Six Flags has serious problems. The debt must be reduced. I believe additional park sales are going to be required. And as we are seeing under CEO John Reilly, operating strategies are changing.

But none of those conditions suddenly appeared yesterday. They were there when JANA arrived.

If an investor entered Six Flags expecting a quick turnaround and a rapid financial payoff, perhaps the problem isn't entirely Six Flags. Conceivably the problem is the expectation, and lack of understanding of the business. I have seen this be the case quite a few times.

Theme parks are long-term businesses. Disneyland opened more than 70 years ago. Dollywood's evolution has taken decades.

Universal Orlando has been built through successive generations of multibillion-dollar investments.

The greatest parks in the world were not built quarter by quarter. Look at the success of Europa Park in Rust, Germany, the number two theme park in Europe behind Disney. It has had excellent vision and management.

All of these parks were built generation by generation. Not based on a 6–12 month investment, like JANA Partners.

This is precisely why I become concerned when short-horizon financial capital enters our industry promising transformation and then starts looking toward the exit when transformation proves difficult. Theme parks are more than numbers on somebody's spreadsheet. Too bad a company like JANA had no vision on the past and short-term future of Six Flags. Shame on you.

Some advice for JANA Partners, Kelce, and others. Do not enter a capital-intensive, labor-intensive, weather-sensitive, generational business requiring continuous reinvestment and then become surprised when it cannot be repaired between quarterly earnings calls.

That is why I say, this is not a theme-park failure. THAT IS AN INVESTMENT-HORIZON FAILURE!

Six Flags needs fixing, needs deleveraging, needs leadership, needs smarter pricing, and needs disciplined capital allocation. Yes, it also needs continued portfolio rationalization, as well as relentless focus on the guest.

But above everything else, SIX FLAGS NEEDS TIME! Wall Street can provide capital to the theme park industry. Private equity can provide capital. Activist investors can provide capital.

But as I have seen many times, there is one thing money alone cannot provide, and that is understanding. And I believe, if you don't understand the business you bought, eventually the guests and the balance sheet will remind you.