http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/07/business/la-fi-cedar-fair7-2010apr07

CEO Dick Kinzel stated, ” We are honored and excited by the opportunity to continue to manage and operate Cedar Fair…”

Mr. Kinzel you would be wise not to get to excited, or make any long term plans, for your future at Cedar Fair. Your tenure is up. Unitholders are simply going to have to let you go.

As to the Cedar Fair party line concerning the $6.5 million fee to Apollo–it is not, as has been characterized, a “reimbursement of expenses.” It is foolish of CF to make this payment to Apollo.

Smart money would have made Apollo bring suit in an effort to collect this excessive remuneration. This is yet another marker for managements missteps, misjudgments, and misdirection, of resources.

Unitholder defeat of the flawed merger agreement is but the beginning. Now the real Unitholder work begins: cleaning up the executive suite.

It should also be apparent management no longer has the “required level of investor support” to continue much into the future. That would account for why they paid Apollo $6.5 million to exit the deal before the scheduled Unitholder Meeting Thursday.

By canceling the vote Mr. Kinzel and management avoid facing the company owners, who, as the story points out, planned to pack the Sandusky State Theater.

No doubt they would have called for big changes in the executive suite.

This is yet another delay tactic devised by an ineffective leader.
Put off facing Unitholders tomorrow. However, lacking the support of your owners, your days are numbered.

The Unitholders have mutinied. Owners have delivered a resounding vote of “no confidence” in management.

Now is the time, in the coming critical season, to radically improve revenues. Kinzel and his management team have shown they do not have the necessary skill set to accomplish this task.

Unitholders must demand immediate changes which will deliver the talent to lead the company into the future. Not dwell in the past.

Exit gracefully Mr. Kinzel, make way for forward looking leadership, or risk being thrown overboard by your Unitholders.

Kinzel and company must know the ride is now over for them

Time to do what should have been done following the Paramount acquisition–retire Kinzel. But for the various mistakes and myopic vision of Kinzel CF would not find itself in the precarious situation it is in.

The way to fix the problems is to fix management. Even Apollo got that right.

Out with the old, in with the new.

Unitholders your real work has just begun. Time to reform the board and management suite at CF.

It is difficult to say if the deal will consummate.

Much depends upon the actions of the two big funds which hold approximately 27% of the shares. If they push for inclusion, via equity in the new Apollo controlled entity, it is possible they could garner the votes for it to pass.

But then, again, Apollo could fail. For those who still doubt savvy money thinks this is a stinker of a deal for Unitholders–look at the position the Knott family has taken.

The Knott family is on record as opposing the deal. These are folks adept at financing and running large resort parks. If they feel it is a bad deal for them, you can count on it being a bad deal for you.

The Knott family controls more than 3% of the Cedar Fair Units.

Given the small Unitholders disgust towards management, I think this deal may very well be scuttled by a “no” vote.

No voting will not be enough. Unitholders must then take strong action to rescue CF from the entrenched management and board.

For CF to prosper Kinzel must be sent packing. It is likely CF would not be in the position it finds itself in today had Kinzel retired, AS WAS PROMISED, shortly after the Paramount Parks acquisition.

What CF needed then, and desperately needs now, is a forward looking CEO and Management Team. The “accounts mentality” must be swept from the executive offices.

Unitholders and the company need leadership on pricing, product, and promotion. Leadership which has been absent under the likes of a past-his-prime and past-his-retirement-date Kinzel.

You can bet your Units Apollo is planning for just such a redirection in the actions in the executive offices.

For Unitholders to be rewarded they must maintain control of the company and make the necessary changes in the executive suite.