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Saddleback

mbedle

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The ski area's website is no longer active and it automatically redirects you to saddleback realty's website. Guessing they are updating it to provide information about the sale.
 

Jully

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Interesting. What's their connection to the area?


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Honestly have no idea. I'll be interested in their big plans, but after what happened to the Berry's big plans, I'll be happy just with a few more years of operations.

As for SMF, they'll continue to sit in a holding pattern and slowly fade away would be my guess. It would be cool to see them continue to have a presence around the mountain, kind of like Friends of Burke without the tension involved in that situation.

Their latest update made them seem unhappy with the plans of the investors, so I doubt they will try to work with them.
 

Jully

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Is anybody at this announcement this morning? Website back up, but only a new homepage, with just a picture.

Supposedly the conference will be posted online somewhere directly after it finishes. Word was that someone from SMF was going to FB live it, but I can't find it anywhere.
 

Jully

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Majella Group is the name of the Australians buying it.

"Majella is an Australian based, multinational company operating in a number of sectors including technology, design, engineering, project management, consulting services, property developments and financial services."

http://majellagroup.com/
 

thetrailboss

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Majella Group is the name of the Australians buying it.

"Majella is an Australian based, multinational company operating in a number of sectors including technology, design, engineering, project management, consulting services, property developments and financial services."

http://majellagroup.com/

Sounds like the CEO is buying it and not the Majella Group:

At a press conference this morning at Saddleback, Sebastian Monsour, chief executive officer of the Majella Group, was announced as the buyer of Maine’s third-largest ski area.

An opening date for Saddleback has not yet been set, as the deal with Monsour is not even 24 hours old, according to Fred LaMontagne, who will be managing resort operations as chief executive officer.

The article also mentions that he has been in Portland for some time looking for opportunities. Interesting. Hopefully it is a good winter for them and they can make it go. Does he have any ski resort experience?
 

mbedle

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Great news for you saddleback skiers. Looks like they are set to invest some money into the place. I feel bad for the SMF, I am sure they put a lot of effort into closing on a deal. I think their biggest mistake was going from a co-op to a membership based plan. I would have sunk 2k into the place just to say I own a ski resort...
 

Mapnut

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Interesting that a diverse conglomerate with a "Property" division would buy a ski area 10,000 miles away. I'll bet there's a skier in a high position with interests or maybe part-time residency in New England. If I was in that position with millions of bucks available, I'd certainly try to talk my bosses into buying Saddleback (of all the ski areas available in New England). Now that we no longer need to speculate about "who", we can speculate about "why". Hopefully we'll soon be hearing about "what next".
 

mbedle

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Interesting that a diverse conglomerate with a "Property" division would buy a ski area 10,000 miles away. I'll bet there's a skier in a high position with interests or maybe part-time residency in New England. If I was in that position with millions of bucks available, I'd certainly try to talk my bosses into buying Saddleback (of all the ski areas available in New England). Now that we no longer need to speculate about "who", we can speculate about "why". Hopefully we'll soon be hearing about "what next".

They have an office in Portland. They mentioned in the conference that they have already hired Doppelmayr to replace the double with a fixed quad and one of the t-bar with a surface lift.
 

Jully

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Sounds like the CEO is buying it and not the Majella Group:





The article also mentions that he has been in Portland for some time looking for opportunities. Interesting. Hopefully it is a good winter for them and they can make it go. Does he have any ski resort experience?

Unclear if he is buying it or if the group is buying it... he's appointed the CEO of the American operations of Majella to be the CEO of Saddleback.

He has no ski area experience that I can tell. He first discovered the area in 2011 while on a tour of the US. Not totally clear how he discovered Saddleback, he just said he ended up in Maine. Wanted to buy SB just because its "hard."
 

Jully

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They have an office in Portland. They mentioned in the conference that they have already hired Doppelmayr to replace the double with a fixed quad and one of the t-bar with a surface lift.

Quad has a capacity of 1,500 skiers an hour while their surface lift replacement has a capacity of 1,200 skiers per hour. Both of those seem very odd. So the quad will have reduced capacity by a lot?
 
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