American Skiing Company - "Northeast Skier Visits"

[thetrailboss]

I'm with you but unfortunately a majority of destination customers do. BTW, I think the the Mad River Valley has many great restaurants(Common Man, Pitcher Inn, Big World, the Den, American Flatbread, Chez Henri, 1824 House, many more and shops plus no fast food chains, not even a stoplight.

He's right. This is what the "average Joe and Jane skier" wants/needs for their vacations.

 

[Geoff]

It's probably hard to find good local workers since many of them want to be part of NH. :lol:
Remeber when LBO proposed a huge base area development...they were going to invest 750m...that's 3/4 of a billion. I guess it didn't work out and they eventually sold the development rights to someone else a few years ago.

Didn't ASC put in a huge new snowmaking pond in the late 90's. I remember the snowmaking guru at the Bush had to spend the summer at Kmart supervising the construction.

Too many shopping and dining are more important than the skiing. For a resort the size of Kmart they fall way short when compared to Stowe. When the wife and I stayed on the access road last year for a couple of nights I was surprised there was not more development. If your young and want to party Kmart does seem to have several good places for that and there was some nice restaurants but how many people actually walk up and down those beautiful sidewalks they built?

...and what's wrong with New Hampshire? ....

ASC didn't 'sell' the development rights to the Killington Base Village. ASC defaulted on the loan that was used to buy the Killington empire (Kmart, Mt Snow, Sugarloaf). That land was ripped away from them in exchange for forgiving a bunch of debt. The land is now owned by a Texas company called SP Land. It's never appeared in the press but I think that SP Land is financed by Oak Hill, the Texas company that holds the senior debt in ASC. Killington, Ltd was allowed to keep a 25% interest in SP Land. Centex, a monster Texas property developer, is now supposed to be building the village. It's unlikely that ASC will be around when there's actually any profit to show from the project. They definitely aren't breaking ground this year and there's no telling when it will happen if the real estate market corrects.

ASC paid to have a pipeline run from the Woodward Reservoir, 3 miles south of what used to be the base of the Northeast Passage lift at the junction of 100S & Rt 4. They now have unlimited snowmaking water but limited budget to pay the energy costs to run pumps and air compressors to make snow.

The businesses on the Killington access road make their money selling alcohol. There aren't many quality restaurants. My wife calls it "the land of 1000 cocktail lounges." If you drive the access road in June at dinner hour looking for green license plates, that'll give you a pretty good sense of where to eat. If you go a little bit off-mountain, there are a bunch of other options.

 

[ctenidae]

Talked with a guy who knows more about private equity and debt than any 10 men (got Google for 75 cents a share)- said Oak Hill will ride ASC for as long as it takes to get something, anything. May only be a 2% IRR 15 years later, but they really don't have anything else to do.