Minnesota’s Valleyfair Merger with Six Flags Under Review

Back in November, it was announced that the owner of Minnesota's Valleyfair theme park was merging with Six Flags, now that deal is under review.

According to reports, The U.S. Department of Justice is asking for more documents and reviewing the merger of Six Flags and Cedar Fair, if approved, the merger would create one of the largest theme operators in the world.

Theme park consultant, Dennis Speigel told Cleveland.com, that this isn't a surprising development and called it "normal procedure", but doesn't expect the DOJ to find anything worthy of halting the merger of the theme park giants. He said they may "require either Cedar Fair or Six Flags to sell off a property or two in markets where there is overlap."

Six Flags said in the original announcement about the merger that they expected the deal to be approved and finalized in the first half of 2024, so that timeline still seems to be on track.

If approved for merger, the new company will move its headquarters to Charlotte, North Carolina and will operate under the Six Flags name. The new company would operate 27 amusement parks, 15 water parks, and 9 resort properties and have an estimated value of $8 billion.

Six Flags and Cedar Fair told Reuters, "they are aiming to comply with the DOJ requests on or before May 2, and added that they continue to expect the merger to close in the first half of 2024."

This isn't the first time Cedar Fair has considered offers, but it looks like it may be the offer that seals the deal, in 2019 Six Flags made an offer to buy Cedar Fair and that was rejected, and in 2022 Sea World made an offer, and that was also declined.