The delays in getting cash infused into Freestyle Music Park by new investors means the company will close its business offices until a deal is reached.
Below is a press release issued by the company Friday afternoon:
The management team at Freestyle Music Park announced today that delays in funding have not deterred their negotiations with potential investors; however, limited funds will force the company to close its business offices until a deal is agreed upon with the current owners.
"While park management continues to pursue negotiations with potential investors, we have limited funds and need to use those assets toward the goal of bringing new investors to the park," said Freestyle Music Park General Manager Steve Baker. "We fully anticipate one of these deals will be satisfactory to the current owners. It's a tedious process and is just taking much longer to come to final agreements than expected. Deals on the table are contingent upon the Park opening this season. With the time difference in Russia, we will be working around the clock to make these deals happen in the coming days - not weeks - days."
Due to the seasonality of the theme park industry, the park has been operating with a limited staff throughout the offseason. According to Baker, the remaining staff will be laid off until an investment agreement is finalized. Until that time, the board of directors and executive management will continue to meet with potential investment groups and communicate with the current owners to finalize the agreement. Once an agreement is reached, the management team will bring employees back to work, create a plan for vendor repayment and announce the plans for the 2010 season.
Baker says the success of the 2009 season was very encouraging. He cites the worldwide economy and recession as the reason the current Russian investors are seeking additional funding to operate the park. The out of state parties remain in Myrtle Beach and committed to seeing the deal through, he adds.
"We've kept all efforts alive to find investors. Our efforts have been sincere. We've maintained the status quo in order to find new investors," Baker added. "We still take our financial obligations seriously and will do everything we can do to resolve them. There's a great future for this park. It just needs a chance and hasn't had that yet."
2010 Season ------------------------------------------- [size]May 20th Cedar Point (Physics Day) May 29th Cedar Point ------------------------------------------- June 16th Cedar Point June 22ndCedar Point -------------------------------------------- July 10th Cedar Point July 11th Cedar Point
Screamscape has posted a great update about the status of Freestyle Music Park:
Screamscape has done a little extra digging on the Freestyle Music Park front and has come into contact with a very interesting source who has asked to remain anonymous. “We were retained by Tara Perry and Exploration Holdings. The group represented to us that they had a signed contract to purchase the park that would expire on January 15, 2010. After starting the process with them to fund the acquisition including giving them an LOI they proved unable to complete the process and vanished.” (LOI = Letter Of Intent) By the sound of this statement it does indeed sound like Tara Perry’s group was the original group of investors that Freestyle Music Park has been telling everyone about since October. Going back to our January 5th and 6th updates, the park had even said that they expected to finalize a deal with new investors by January 15th. After missing that deadline, it looks like things opened up to involve negotiations with other investors to decide the fate of the park. At this point I think it’s safe to assume that Perry / Exploration Holdings are completely out of the picture. Based on their previous actions in New Orleans, I’d also wager that Southern Star is unlikely to actually put any money where their mouth is. So unless there is a mystery 4th investor group out there, this leaves Felix Mussenden’s group with the run of the table and the bargaining power to try and lowball the Russian owners into a discount deal for the park. The Russian owners (MT Development) are now effetely caught between a rock and a hard place… facing bankruptcy and the risk of losing everything on one side, or accepting an offer that is likely to be far less than what they want just to escape with something. Right now I imagine they’re holding out hope that another serious group may be ready to join the party and make a more reasonable offer. If not… what’s it going to be? DEAL or NO DEAL?
