Beleaguered theme park owner Six Flags has a new activist investor group featuring one of the most famous celebrities in the country: Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
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Kelce, Jana Partners and other unnamed investors have acquired 9% of Six Flags shares, an equity stake valued at $200M, The Wall Street Journal first reported.
Six Flags has been hemorrhaging cash, and its shares have plunged 47% this year as it is set to close multiple theme parks across the country.
The new partnership plans to take an activist role in its investment, pushing the company to improve its marketing and customer experience, according to the WSJ. It also sees opportunity in modernizing the entertainment giant’s technology, refreshing its leadership and evaluating a sale in efforts to boost its share price.
Adding Kelce’s household name — he is engaged to pop megastar Taylor Swift — to the investment roster is expected to have an impact by itself.
“Excited to partner with JANA Partners as an investor in Six Flags,” Kelce wrote Tuesday in an Instagram post, which has garnered more than 230,000 likes.
As a child, Kelce’s family frequented the Cedar Point amusement park in Erie, Ohio. Six Flags merged with park owner Cedar Fair in July 2024.
The Instagram post included clips of Kelce reminiscing about the park on his New Heights podcast with his brother, former Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman Jason Kelce, and old home videos of the family on park rides.
“So crazy to even imagine this is real, but you gotta love when life comes full circle,” he wrote.
The stock price for Six Flags Entertainment Corp., which trades under the ticker FUN, rose roughly 18% Tuesday after the investment was announced, the WSJ reported.
Another activist investor has already been advocating for Six Flags to make changes. Land & Buildings Investment Management, which holds a 2% stake in the company, has been pushing since 2022 for Six Flags to split itself into two businesses: a subsidiary that owns the business’s revenue-generating properties and a separate operating company.
Land & Buildings Chief Investment Officer Jonathan Litt reiterated the case in a letter to shareholders last month, saying the merger has yielded even more pain for Six Flags.
“Unfortunately, the performance post-merger has not only proven us right, it’s been far worse than we even anticipated,” he wrote.
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