[gladerider]

i think management perspectives are different from one scenario to another. sometimes an equity firm's objective for an acquisition/funding is different from another company's M&A objective. PE firms normally have portfolios. some PE portfolios are for fund creation. some PEs are turnaround specialists. many PEs are niche players. many fund related portfolios today are realestate plays.

realestate funds driven acquisitions are taking some hits right now from stock performance-wise. but, many of these funds probably are taking bigger hits from their credit related debt management more than the actual stock fluctuation. i am willing to bet that the current bad stock performance is due to the investors accounting this very problem into their pricing rather than the actual P/L performance of each holding in their portfolio.

intrawest was a very interesting company. it's a horizontal integration play driven by realestate development profits. i respect the owners a lot for their call making to sell out at the right time. they sold when the opportunities were still peaking. vancouver landing the winter olympics just added more credibility to their prudent business execution in Whistler. but at the end of the day, these guys knew skiing industry; which i believe was crucial to their success.
i don't know fortress well, so i don't know their play enough to comment, but intrawest was a good play.

bottom line, when a ski resort is bought buy a non-industry people, i give them less than 50% of long term success. i also think that it is difficult to build a vision if you are an outsider and don't know the business. sometimes senior mgmt gets lost in the frenzy and hoopla. they make wrong decisions. case in point, apple. that company went no where without Steven Jobs. no matter what industry and what PE, it takes a visionary to do well, IMHO.

i see one thing different with intrawest after the sales. they spend a lot of money on marketing. will it raise my cost to visit intrawest resort? likely.