Jay Peak bombshell

[sull1102]

People overestimate the strength of Jay Peak. Killington can keep Pico going because it does have that scale and overall market power to keep a mid market mountain that otherwise might not make it going and improving. Jay Peak alone can be a top player in the East right there with K, Stowe, Sugarloaf, etc. The Jay+Burke combo on the other hand seems to really struggle in comparison.

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[thetrailboss]

People overestimate the strength of Jay Peak. Killington can keep Pico going because it does have that scale and overall market power to keep a mid market mountain that otherwise might not make it going and improving. Jay Peak alone can be a top player in the East right there with K, Stowe, Sugarloaf, etc. The Jay+Burke combo on the other hand seems to really struggle in comparison.

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Why do you say that?

 

[KustyTheKlown]

pico has rutland. that's a solid chunk of population to make up your core crowd, and they dont want to deal with the crowds and expenses of killington. burke has st johnsbury. not nearly as populous, and they probably prefer to ski jay.

 

[bdfreetuna]

Burke has a summer advantage with Kingdom Trails but how much they can profit off that beats me.

 

[VTKilarney]

What’s scary is that the new hotel hasn’t brought profits but has brought significant increased fixed costs.

 

[deadheadskier]

What’s scary is that the new hotel hasn’t brought profits but has brought significant increased fixed costs.

IMO, they should have gone timeshare / quarter ownership model with that building. Doing so cuts into margins during peak seasons, but the association fees keeps the cash flow positive to fund operational costs in the off season.

Problem is, the market for time sharing isn't what it once was. End of the day though, the idea of increasing the bed base is the right plan.

Overall, probably the one thing that saves Burke eventually is the continued population growth along the 93 corridor from Manchester to Concord. More people living there who will drive an hour past Loon for a more mellow ski experience. That's probably 20 years away

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[thetrailboss]

IMO, they should have gone timeshare / quarter ownership model with that building. Doing so cuts into margins during peak seasons, but the association fees keeps the cash flow positive to fund operational costs in the off season.

Problem is, the market for time sharing isn't what it once was. End of the day though, the idea of increasing the bed base is the right plan.

Overall, probably the one thing that saves Burke eventually is the continued population growth along the 93 corridor from Manchester to Concord. More people living there who will drive an hour past Loon for a more mellow ski experience. That's probably 20 years away

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I think that the longterm plan was for owner-occupied units....or timeshares.

Not a big surprise as to the current financial picture. Q burned a lot of goodwill that will take time to rebuild. They also built a hotel that is a bit too upscale for the biker crowd. That said, the building is beautiful and when I was there a few weeks back it was busy and the Willoughby Pub was decent. At other times when I have visited it is dead.

Both resorts are in different places. Jay is pretty much built-out...in terms of amenities. But Jay's lift infrastructure is pretty old overall. Burke is a work in progress in terms of amenities but, surprisingly, its lifts are WAY ahead of Jay. Ski-wise, Burke needs to see a facelift of the lodges and increased snowmaking.

 

[VTKilarney]

I wonder how a Stateside lodge clone would have done at Burke. It would be a better fit for the mountain bikers.

 

[mister moose]

pico has rutland. that's a solid chunk of population to make up your core crowd, and they dont want to deal with the crowds and expenses of killington. burke has st johnsbury. not nearly as populous, and they probably prefer to ski jay.

But wait, there's more.

Pico is closer to New York, NJ and Boston. It has a decent condo base with better ski in-ski out than anything at Killington. It attracts families, and has good synergy with Killington that is only 8 minutes away. Pico has better snowmaking, and has a less crowded, low key vibe. VT adaptive and tele skiers have a large presence. Both non resort dining in Rutland and the Killington nightlife is 10 minutes in either direction. While it runs 5 days a week and has a shorter season than most, it appears to be stable.

Burke is farther, it's a tough draw for what it offers. It gets better snow, but only certain times of the year. If you want restaurants or nightlife you have far far less to choose from. The new hotel's capital costs must be crushing with no EB-5 money flowing to plug the holes in the dike. While the new HSQ is nice, maintaining 2 of them won't be cheap either.

All this is leading up to the point that while there is very likely a purchase price at which an investor is able to make money with a reasonable amount of confidence, that price is likely not going to cover all the debt.

 

[deadheadskier]

Lot of fallacies in your statements Moose.

You can't make it from Pico to the Snowshed lodge in 8 minutes under the best conditions.

Burke is closer to Lyndonville than Pico is to Rutland.

Not sure it's worth arguing which mountain has the better snowmaking system. They both make the bare minimum to operate and are pretty unimpressive.

Burke is about 20 minutes further from Boston than Pico,
but is a much easier drive.

Pico for sure has NY/NJ customer base advantages. Burke has a Montreal market that Pico does not.

Crowd comparisons? Pretty much equal.

Both places have to deal with the cost of High Speed Quads.

Terrain I'd give a big advantage to Burke. Far better vertical consistency and way more trees.

If you took Killington away and compared just Burke and Pico, I think Burke is the more sustainable product. And I love Pico. Prefer the experience there to Killington



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[BenedictGomez]

Did I miss something? When did they try to sell Jay & Burke together and fail? What does R.P.T. mean?

That's definitely how this went down (or attempted to). It's precisely what you'd do if you have one decent asset and one poor asset, and you desperately need to move both. It couldn't be done, and I'm really not shocked.

Rich Person's Toy.

 

[VTKilarney]

I’m not convinced that Burke gets better snow than Pico.

 

[Smellytele]

I’m not convinced that Burke gets better snow than Pico.

Thaw/freeze seems to hit Pico worse than Burke but I may just have been luckier at Burke than at Pico. I have skied more at Burke than Pico.

 

[mister moose]

Lot of fallacies in your statements Moose.

You can't make it from Pico to the Snowshed lodge in 8 minutes under the best conditions.
It's 2 miles from Pico to the Access Rd, @ 55 mph that's 2.2 minutes. It's 4 miles further to Snowshed. At 40 mph that's 6 minutes. Total 8.2 minutes. Granted you slow down before the post office on Rte 4, and granted you might get behind slower traffic, and granted it takes longer at 4pm on a Saturday, but I'm really not sure what your point is when you compare driving from Burke to Jay - 52 miles.

Burke is closer to Lyndonville than Pico is to Rutland.
Lyndonville is 7 miles, Rutland is 9. Seriously? Who cares? The restaurants, grocery stores, and other services in Lyndonville pale in number and selection to what's in Rutland.

Not sure it's worth arguing which mountain has the better snowmaking system. They both make the bare minimum to operate and are pretty unimpressive.
Going on what I've read on Burke's compressor capacity, Pico is bigger but is limited by what water is in their ponds. (Recently dredged & enlarged) If you're a family looking to book Christmas and have experience with what both have open by then over the years, I think they'll choose Pico.

Burke is about 20 minutes further from Boston than Pico,
but is a much easier drive. True.

Pico for sure has NY/NJ customer base advantages. Burke has a Montreal market that Pico does not.
At 4.7 million for the Boston metro area plus 1.7 million for Montreal, that also pales next to 20.3 million for NYC metro, 3.5 million in CT, and 1 million in western MA, totaling 6.4 million market for Burke and 29.5 million for Pico. No comparison.
Crowd comparisons? Pretty much equal. Meaning skier visits? Dunno. Doubt it. See above.

Both places have to deal with the cost of High Speed Quads. That's not the point. The point is how big the drain will be proportionately to their budget.

Terrain I'd give a big advantage to Burke. Far better vertical consistency and way more trees. Perhaps. Personal preference. You're not the only market segment either.

If you took Killington away and compared just Burke and Pico, I think Burke is the more sustainable product. And I love Pico. Prefer the experience there to Killington
If my grandmother had wheels, she's be a bus. Deal with reality.

I’m not convinced that Burke gets better snow than Pico.

In my anecdotal experience, Burke got some great snowfalls deeper than Pico, mainly due to latitude. Burke probably gets less rain for those storms where the rain/snow line hoses Pico but snows at Burke. However looking at onthesnow.com, Burke only gets 217" per year and Pico is 250".

 

[deadheadskier]

I guess I'm coming from a position of growing up in the area, making it from Pico to the Snowshed parking lot isn't done in 8 minutes. Google maps lists 11. Real world with access road traffic is probably closer to 15. You didn't mention Jay in the synergy comment, so I didn't realize that was the comparison you were trying to make.

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[thetrailboss]

Oh boy...Pico vs. Burke. I am biased because I grew up at Burke, but here goes.

Pico, unless something has really changed, was pretty tired. The HSQs are 30 years old. Is the Outpost still running in its current state? That needs to be replaced. Snowmaking was adequate on a few main routes, but, like Burke, intended to supplement natural snow on other runs. Base facilities were pretty tired. A lot of trails have not been really maintained and allowed to grow back in. The summer is pretty much the alpine slide (again, unless that changed). Great location. Good location for housing at the base, but again, pretty dated.

Burke has newer lifts--2011 HSQ, 2005 HSQ. Snowmaking has been slowly upgraded but opens a few main routes. No crowds. Trails and glades are maintained. New Hotel. A variety of condos...in various states. Easier access for Hartford, Boston, Montreal, SNH (considering that there is no Route 4). Colder.

Only considering them on their own....you have one that is in better shape infrastructure-wise but less business. The other has more business but is quite dated. Both pretty equal in many ways.

 

[BenedictGomez]

Wall Street Journal publishes op-ed on the belief EB-5 should be killed.

GOOD. I hope it is. As I've been writing here since 2011, it's an un-American, Petri dish for corruption.


No More Pay-to-Play Green Cards
The EB-5 Regional Center program is a bipartisan source of corruption and cronyism. Let it die.

Here’s a change to immigration policy on which Americans of both parties ought to agree: Congress should allow the EB-5 Regional Center Program to expire on schedule at the end of September.

Created in 1992, the EB-5 program—short for “employment-based, fifth-preference visas”—grants green cards to foreign nationals who invest $1 million in an American business that creates at least 10 jobs. The minimum investment for visa eligibility drops to $500,000 if the project benefits a rural area or a place with high unemployment. For years the program received temporary extensions—usually tucked into must-pass spending bills such as the March 2018 omnibus—despite well-documented fraud and national-security concerns. There is scant evidence the program produces economic benefits.

Nearly all EB-5 investments (and visa petitions) flow through the 866 regional centers, which pool EB-5 investments with little oversight or regulation. Regional center operators, together with state and local officials, have manipulated the process so that almost every project is considered to be in a rural or high-unemployment area. Sen. Chuck Grassley released a 2013 internal memo from the investigative arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement concluding that there are “no safeguards that can be put in place that will ensure the integrity of the [regional center] model.”

Making matters worse, the EB-5 Program is also a bipartisan source of political corruption and cronyism. Last year, the Kushner Cos. urged Chinese citizens to invest in projects through the EB-5 Program. White House adviser Jared Kushner’s sister, Nicole Kushner Meyer, was featured prominently. Mr. Kushner had previously leveraged the EB-5 program to help finance the construction of a luxury mixed-use skyscraper in a booming area of Jersey City, N.J., which the company artfully got qualified as a high-unemployment area.

The Homeland Security Department shut down Vermont’s regional center after a group of foreign investors filed a lawsuit alleging “the largest fraud in Vermont history and the largest EB-5 fraud in U.S. history.” The Securities and Exchange Commission accused the two operators of Vermont’s EB-5 program, which raised more than $200 million, of operating a Ponzi scheme and using program funds to pay for personal and lifestyle expenses, including a luxury condominium in New York City.

South Dakota’s regional center was similarly engulfed in scandal in 2013 when officials siphoned off millions in EB-5 funds and tax revenue for personal use, including the purchase of Egyptian artifacts, resulting in at least one felony conviction.

In 2008 Republican Govs. Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana lent political support to an EB-5 regional center that eventually funded a doomed green-car company founded by Terry McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chairman who was elected governor of Virginia in 2013. The company filed for bankruptcy this February.

In 2015 the Homeland Security inspector general found that former Sen. Harry Reid inappropriately intervened on behalf of a Las Vegas hotel and casino that had solicited and secured EB-5 investments.

The only real support for renewing the EB-5 program comes from real-estate developers with political connections. They argue that the program creates jobs, but an independent examination by the Government Accountability Office found no evidence to verify those job-creation claims.

At a June 2018 Senate Judiciary hearing, L. Francis Cissna, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, explained that his agency doesn’t have the authority to curb endemic fraud in the EB-5 program. Mr. Cissna also couldn’t catalog the amount of the fraud. Unless Congress could legislate some reform to the program, he said, it should be allowed to expire. That time has come.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-more-pay-to-play-green-cards-1537310970

 

[bdfreetuna]

Pico gets more snow on average than Burke, although Burke sometimes holds on to it better (as has been mentioned).

It's not rare for Killington Peak & Pico to get some of the highest individual storm totals in Vermont. Not very often is Burke in the bullseye, but it happens (if you're willing to overlook Jay Peak).

 

[thetrailboss]

The "don't ask any questions" line here will come as no surprise to many of you:

https://vtdigger.org/2018/09/20/eb-5-chief-repeatedly-shut-efforts-audit-jay-peak/

 

[BenedictGomez]

The "don't ask any questions" line here will come as no surprise to many of you:

https://vtdigger.org/2018/09/20/eb-5-chief-repeatedly-shut-efforts-audit-jay-peak/

There is so much in this article that is just either amazingly corrupt, factually incorrect and/or egregiously irresponsible financially, or mindbogglingly Mayberry dumb.

I'm legitimately astounded. And that's coming from someone who's been a critic of this from Day #1.