مواقع تداول الأسهم الثنائية: 2018

Selim Bassoul, CEO of Six Flags, marked out a risky strategy for Flags’ stakeholders: customers, thoosies, employees, and shareholders. He described that strategy as “premiumization.” A premium product, under this rubric, produces smaller crowds yielding shorter lines for attractions, rides, and food locations. Customers should be able to enjoy more rides per visit. More rides and easier access to food implies higher guest satisfaction scores. The primary tactic employed to achieve Selim’s premiumization has been to raise price. In theory, raising price squeezes out undesirables like teens and young adults who don’t have a lot of spending power. Teens and young adults have been historically one of the two target demographic profiles for Flags. The other target demo has been families with young children. He welcomes families, but not those who shop at Walmart and K-mart. Flags only wants those who shop at Target or better. Selim’s thesis is that more affluent families will become a much larger proportion of attendance. They will drive revenue and profits higher. But will that new target demo really grow fast enough and spend enough to outpace attrition from Flags’ base?
Here is a top 10 list why Selim’s strategy will fail:

1. A lack of brand awareness. Selim doesn’t understand the brand, which is best described by recalling the positioning of its several parks (shoutout to u/ChairmanTman). To give one example, Six Flags Magic Mountain is “The thrill capital of the world.” Thrills appeal to teens and young adults not families with young children. With a significant advertising spend and crisp messaging, it will take years to get families – especially affluent families – to see the brand differently. This leads us into the second reason the strategy will fail.

2. A much smaller target demographic? Teens and young adults make up about 55% of the attendance mix at a typical Flags’ park. Families comprise a smaller segment. Flags’ customer base also skews middle to lower middle class. Flags’ typical customer is the Walmart crowd. Without teens and young adults, and without Walmart shoppers, attendance will drift downward at a rate faster than Q2 2022 showed. If you compare second quarter 2022 to 2019, both years without COVID restrictions and use the same periods, Flags lost 40% of its attendance.
3. The wrong ride and attraction mix. All previous Flags management except Shapiro understood the brand and its target demos. All other management teams added lots of thrill rides, especially roller coasters. But not so many family rides and attractions. This is why the Flags parks look nothing like those of Disney and Universal. They have very distinct attraction mixes. They have few shows. It will take lots of money – billions of dollars, yes, billions -- to add the rides, attractions, shows, and amenities necessary to attract families at the levels needed to be compete with Disney and Universal and be financially successful.
4. Fright Fest is scary. Fright Fest is the largest and most popular event that Flags offers. It is deeply woven into its brand. But someone should explain to Selim that Fright Fest is primarily a teen and young adult product. The Reid-Anderson team worked hard to keep it “fright by night” for teens and young adults, with “thrills by day.” Notice, there was no emphasis on “treats by day.” Fright Fest without teens and young adults makes little sense. Selim will have to dumb it down for families with young children to stick around after dark. “Boo Fest” will be a loss leader if it is executed well, otherwise it will just suck.
5. It’s about rides not events. Anyone who has worked in the industry or enjoys theme parks knows that rides – not events – drive the business. Halloween and Christmas are the exceptions that prove the rule. New rides generally give customers a reason to come back for a visit. New rides also give you a hero to add to an advertising campaign or boost pass sales. They have also been used as the excuse to raise price. Selim seems to believe that a “Funnel Cake Day”, “Coaster Day”, and “Summer Vibes” can take the place of new ride to drive interest and visitation. Uh, no**.**
6. Selim’s stops, starts, and missteps. The event calendars just released weren’t originally part of “premiumization.” The event lineup began after push back from consumers, thoosies, and analysts. Dining plans were eliminated, added back after his error became apparent. The same for advertising. Selim first told Flags’ employees that marketing added no value. It was gutted. Selim also dramatically cut back advertising spend. He now admits his error, causing millions in lost revenue and attendance. Simplifying the pass program was yet another of his goals. There were 10 or fewer pass types – season, annual, and membership -- per park when he joined. Some parks now have 30 active pass types. This is the result of try this, now that, stop this, and go back to that. How can consumers or front-line employees possibly differentiate between the benefits each pass offers? The frustration within the organization is palpable. Confusion reigns in the market place. This begs the question as to what else he doesn’t understand about running a theme park company.
7. Flags is bleeding talent. New corporate leaders always brings in others that s/he has worked with in the past. In key positions, they help a smooth transition to the new strategy a CEO wants to implement. But smart and savvy CEOs know what they don’t know. They need some institutional knowledge in their new company for its efficient implementation and ensure buy-in from employees. Without buy-in, a new CEO will find his plan poorly executed. It’s more important to hold on to institutional and industry knowledge when a new leader comes from outside the industry. That knowledge might have kept Selim from repeating the dumb mistakes of the past. Between layoffs and voluntary exits occurring in rapid succession, various business functions were left…well, non-functioning. Sources tell me there were 2 restructurings under Spanos and 3 layoffs under Selim so far. Areas of research, marketing and finance grinded to a halt without someone knowledgeable enough to perform those functions. Flags now has the worst possible thing in business: a bad strategy, poorly executed.
8. He’s out of touch. Selim comes from Middleby, which is said to have thrived under his leadership. I’m not convinced. Revenue grew through acquisitions. There was very little growth in net income and EBITDA during his tenure. But even if we buy what he is selling, Middleby is a supplier of kitchen equipment. It sells to other businesses. That’s a different animal than consumer facing businesses. Leaders of consumer facing businesses understand the importance of clean, crisp communication to its consumers and employees alike. When Selim joined Flags, he said public relations was useless much like marketing. He demonstrated the same lack of awareness by insulting his customers on a recent earnings call. Savvy business-to-consumer CEOs, like Reid-Anderson, understood that getting the buy-in of front line team members is important. To repeat, without buy-in, even a good strategy would be doomed to failure by poor execution.
9. A lack of professionalism. Whenever someone disagrees with Selim, it is widely known that s/he is met by screaming and ranting. This sounds like bullying to me. It has no place in the American workplace if it does anywhere. But it has another and more insidious import. Employees will not speak up and give their honest opinion on what the company wants. This helps explain the starts, stops, and missteps noted above. Selim also told the entire Flags’ organization he doesn’t read reports. The implication is that they shouldn’t waste their time either. Does this mean that data doesn’t inform his decisions? This explains Selim’s response to an analyst on the Q2 earnings call. He was asked what data he'd seen to support his assertion that there would be some attendance recovery. Selim responded, even after prodding, about his feelings on a rebound.
10. Some sobering numbers. There’s been a lot of talk that the Flags’ parks are empty this summer. It’s true. In the short-term, that’s a great thing for someone wanting to ride roller coasters. I do. The long-term is a different matter. Flags was actually down 40% in attendance in Q2 2022 when one compares it against the same period of 2019. (Why 2019 and not 2021? There were no COVID restrictions in both 2022 and 2019, but there were restrictions in 2020 and 2021.) But you can’t bank attendance, so why should Selim care? Flags was also down $68.2 million (or -14.3%) in revenue and $21.6 million (or -13.9%) in EBITDA. Its chief competitors Cedar Fair and SeaWorld were also down in attendance. But only a teeny-weeny bit. Yet Cedar Fair was up in same quarter $73.3 million (+16.8%) in revenue and $7.5 million (+4.6%) in EBITDA. SeaWorld was up a whopping $98.8 million (+24.3%) in revenue and $84.7 million (+56.6%) in EBITDA! (A shoutout to u/FlabbiestPie for a previous post.) Flags’ attendance problem has been accelerating into Q3.
Why do I care? I’m a customer, a thoosie, and an analyst who follows the industry. I don’t want to see Six Flags head further down the road to perdition. ‘Nuff said?

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TL;DR

1. I bought a P3D with a $4,600 discount. Though it had done 1,800 miles, it was sold to me as a new car and has the same warranty as any other Model 3. I'm elated.
2. Be diligent about discounts. 2018 Model 3 cars are being discounted for odd reasons, but the discount tends to NOT show up on the MVPA. Call and have people submit tickets to have the price corrected.

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Long Story Long
I ordered a Long Range Dual Motor Model 3 on 20190304 (that's the only logical date format, heathens--units ordered largest to smallest.) Did not order with FSD. Total was $53,000.
Cool.
As the title suggests, this changed quite a lot by the time I took delivery.
After 2 days, I was matched with a VIN. Great. Let's call this car Match 1. I get the MVPA (purchase agreement) for Match 1 and it all looks good, except it showed the condition as "New - Previous service/demo vehicle"
Wtf?
So I asked my Inside Delivery Advisor about it. Now, this bloke wasn't the most helpful--he had terrible response times and he didn't answer my questions at all, but I have to cut him some slack; I hear the Inside Delivery Advisors are dealing with 100-150 orders at any given time...
When he finally replied to my email, he gave me an explanation that I now know to be untrue. Whatever. I asked if there was a discount--he said no. I also found that this was untrue...but only after getting matched with a different car. There should have been a discount, but it wasn't reflected on the MVPA and he didn't go looking in the right system.
Why would I accept a 2018 with that odd condition when I could just wait a bit more and get a 2019? I had him unmatch me from Match 1 so I could wait for a 2019 vehicle.
While waiting, I decided that I would be fine with Match 1 if I could just get a discount. Tesla Sales in Fremont (I think) recommended I talk to the Manager at my local (Dallas--Cedar Springs) Delivery Center. I called and asked, but never even spoke to the Manager, who had one of his Sales guys call me back and try to match me with a different vehicle (Match 2) that showed a $500 discount. This vehicle had less that 100 miles on it, so I'm not sure why it was discounted. Perhaps the manufacture year? Who knows...
Okay, fine, match me.
The MVPA hits my inbox. No discount. Wtf? I ask my IDA about it and he says he's never seen a discount like this (really?), so he's surprised, but he does see it when he looks in the right system, so he'll submit a ticket to get the discount reflected in the MVPA.
K.
While considering my situation and how weird and disjointed the process was proving to be, I remembered the Performance Model 3 I had driven several weeks earlier. Instead of dealing with these cars that had questionable histories anyway (couldn't nail down their exact history) and waiting for them to be shipped to Texas, what if I could buy a local car? What if I could buy the P3D I had test driven?
Now, hear me out. This isn't the craziest idea. Sure, people thrash Teslas when they test drive them, but the P3D is supposed to have binned motors which perform better and can handle extra output, etc. Also consider that the Model 3 has a better power platform (larger cabling, better inverters, better battery cells {2170 vs 18650}) to begin with...besides, the car is still sold as new; I'd be the first owner. And it comes with the same warranty as any other Model 3. If I could get a good discount on it, maybe I could justify springing for the Performance, which I had elevated to dream car status since the test drive.
So I called the Delivery Center and asked them about it. It turned out that the car I drove had about 2,000 miles on it. Not bad, but the Sales Advisor told me that the Northpark Gallery (also in Dallas) had an identical car which had fewer miles. Considering that the Gallery does waaaaaay more test drives than the Delivery Center (according to them), I would be better off buying the Northpark twin version of the car I had test driven because it's fundamentally newer (less total miles in a shorter timespan). I'm not sure if that's the case, but it seemed like my best shot, so I went to see it.
It was perfect. Seriously, not a scratch, dent, or uneven panel gap. Best part? $4,600 discount. I couldn't justify Performance at $11,000--just didn't seem like it was worth the money. But what about $6,400? That seemed fairly reasonable to me. And I wouldn't have to wait for the car to be shipped! I ended up add FSD, too--partly because of resale value, partly because of pride, and partly because I'm spending this much money, I sure as hell better have every feature available.
So I went for it. MVPA comes back...needing an adjustment. Twice. First MVPA reflected the discount from Match 2 (~$500). IDA submitted a correction request. This MVPA came back with a $2,600 discount. No idea where that number came from. I called local Tesla gallery and had them submit the ANOTHER adjustment request since they originally quoted me the $4,600 discount.
Finally got the correct amounts on the MVPA. Perfect.
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This car is absolutely insane. It's the future and I'm damn proud to be part of it. FSD will happen...or it won't. That's the gamble we make. Still, for $80/month, I can show off the summon feature and get whatever fun gimmicks come out of Elon's eccentric mind/team.
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Conclusions

1. I can't endorse this method enough. If you like the car you test drive and it doesn't have any apparent flaws, just buy that one. Don't wait for a match, don't wait for shipping...just buy a car from a local gallery. From VIN match to delivery, it was 4 days. If I had known from the beginning I could buy that car at that discount, I could have gone through the whole process in literally 4 days, as I already had financing.
2. Apparently Tesla has a lot of Model 3 (2018 manufactured) sitting around waiting for a buyer and they're selling them under the condition I cited above. Tesla is also having an issue with their systems reflecting discounts properly. If you get matched with a vehicle bearing the same condition I cited above, MAKE SURE you're getting your discount. If there is no discount, ask someone else. Call your local gallery, call a delivery center, call the main Tesla Sales number...if they all say there's no discount, I guess it's true. Just don't trust what Advisor 1 says--get a 2nd (and possibly 3rd) opinion.