Dan Snyder‘s football team never looked better than the last four weeks of the regular season. But over at Six Flags, Snyder’s other big-dollar playtoy, investors aren’t earning a playoff berth, or anything else.
At the close of markets on Friday, a share of Six Flags stock (SIX) was going for $1.90, its lowest level in at least 10 years.
In 2005, Snyder got Kieran Burke, his predecessor as chairman of the amusement chain’s board of directors, bounced out of the company by telling stockholders the company’s stock was undervalued.
“Stockholders would have been better off hiding their money under a mattress” than investing in Six Flags during Burke’s reign, Snyder wrote in a letter to stockholders in the fall of 2005.
Six Flags stock was trading at $7.35 when Snyder’s letter was registered with the SEC. So it’s lost just under 75 percent of its value since Snyder wrote that letter.
And there’s no indication of imminent prosperity. An investment analyst at USA Today said last week that buying into Six Flags Makes no sense: “[T]here’s just no rational way, unless they have inside information that would be illegal to trade on anyway, to build a case for this stock at this point.”
But, maybe booze will turn things around. Six Flags has applied for a liquor license that will allow beer sales in the original Six Flags point, Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington, by next spring. More than 600 local residents filed formal complaints with the state after news of the liquor license application got out, with most saying a park for kids is no place for promoting alcohol consumption.
In response to the tumult, John Bement, senior vice president of in-park services for Six Flags Over Texas, gave a classic quote:
“Truthfully, revenue is not the driving force here,” Bement said.