Ginn News

Not directly related to New England Skiing & Riding, but owner of Burke Mountain, Ginn Resorts, just dropped two major golf tournament sponsorships. Perhaps a sign of cutting back on costs. Have to wonder what this means for Burke in terms of funding the expansion and resort?

Link

A real estate resort company not doing well in the current economy is not too surprising. This brings up my question.... how can CNL, owner of 116 resorts, 14 ski resorts, most in New England, is able to shell out 123m for Triple Peaks( Sunapee, Okemo and Crested Butte) a couple of months ago and now just bought Jiminy Peak, able to keep expanding. Sure, it's REIT which means it buys resorts then leases them back to the seller like SR, Sugarloaf, just to name a few. Will the shoe drop in the next year?

ski_resort_observer said:

A real estate resort company not doing well in the current economy is not too surprising. This brings up my question.... how can CNL, owner of 116 resorts, 14 ski resorts, most in New England, is able to shell out 123m for Triple Peaks( Sunapee, Okemo and Crested Butte) a couple of months ago and now just bought Jiminy Peak, able to keep expanding. Sure, it's REIT which means it buys resorts then leases them back to the seller like SR, Sugarloaf, just to name a few. Will the shoe drop in the next year?

Click to expand...

Without knowing deal specifics, I'd be someone what comforted by the ability of a real estate company to secure financing for a $123MM acquisition this winter.

Looks like Ginn has dropped out/forced out of their huge expensive projects (the ones where they filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy). They have held onto most of their smaller resorts that have already been built. Luckily for Ginn (and Burke), Burke already has a large part of the basic infrastructure in place and doesn't require huge amounts of investment (relative to the Laurelmor or Ginn Ser Mer projects) to stay afloat.
I think Ginn will hold onto the small projects through the economic downturn and try to rebuild the company using the smaller building blocks.
I see teh Battle Mtn project (huge and expensive) taking a back seat to Burke as well.