Company that manages the park sold in $1.24 billion deal
Gilroy – Paramount Great America, the theme-park company that manages day-to-day affairs at Bonfante Gardens in west Gilroy, has been sold as part of a $1.24 billion transaction.
“It’s too early to know what, if any, changes will be implemented,” said Holly Perez, spokeswoman for the company that has a five-year contract to manage and promote the nonprofit horticultural park. Those efforts include hiring employees and operating the park, as well as cross-promotional marketing with Paramount’s theme park in Santa Clara.
“At this point, we’re moving forward with business as usual for this season,” Perez said, adding that “the new owner, Cedar Fair, have themselves been in the theme park business for a number of years. They’re very familiar with how to run a theme park.”
CBS Corporation announced the sale of Great America and four other theme parks this week to the Ohio-based amusement park operator. Industry experts say the acquisition should make Cedar Fair the third-largest theme-park operator in North America in terms of attendance, behind first-place Walt Disney Co. and second-place Six Flags Inc.
Paramount was hired to help the park emerge from a three-year flirtation with bankruptcy. That contract still has two years on it, and it remains unclear if the new owner will take steps that could affect the long-term management of Bonfante Gardens.
Last summer, Bonfante officials completed a 33-acre sale of park land that helped reduce the park’s debt load by tens of millions of dollars. Park officials now hope to permanently avoid the auctioneer’s block by beefing up reserves funds through development of several acres facing the park entrance, at 3050 Hecker Pass Highway.
Paramount’s day-to-day management has freed the park’s board of directors to focus on other goals, according to Joel Goldsmith, vice president of the board.
“The board of directors is responsible for setting the direction of the park,” he explained. “We are taking on a lot more of the responsibilities for the nonprofit side of the park, and Paramount is very much in charge of the operational side.”
He declined to specify how much Paramount is earning for its services.
In addition to Paramount’s Great America, the sale by CBS included: Canada’s Wonderland, near Toronto; Kings Island, near Cincinnati; Kings Dominion near Richmond, Va.; and Carowinds, near Charlotte, N.C.
“The five properties we are acquiring fit very well with our existing parks, and there is very little overlap,” Dick Kinzel, chairman, president and chief executive officer of the Sandusky-based company, said in a teleconference Monday.
Cedar Fair and Paramount Parks generated nearly $1 billion in revenue and about 25 million guests in 2005, Kinzel said.
Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services Inc., a Cincinnati-based consulting firm for the leisure industry, said Cedar Fair faces the challenge confronting the rest of the regional theme-park industry that of appealing to the entire family.
The race for bigger, higher and faster roller coasters in recent years tended to draw more teenagers than families to regional theme parks, Speigel said.
“Teens don’t spend like a family unit does,” he said. “Appealing to families should increase attendance and per capita spending.”
He also said that Cedar Fair and others in the industry must look at providing more pricing and entertainment options and alternatives to guests, many of whom have less disposable time and income.
“The idea is to ensure that guests keep coming back,” he said.
CBS Corp. had been looking to sell the parks business, which didn’t fit with its media holdings. CBS Corp., which split up with Viacom Inc. at the beginning of the year, owns the CBS network and a group of affiliated TV stations, a large radio business and an outdoor advertising company. Viacom, which owns MTV and VH1, kept the Paramount movie studio.
