The PASR Magazine cover thread.

[Benm]

4 minutes ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

Good they need a hotel especially for weddings. 

i was thinking that. the closest one off the top of my head is at the mahoning valley exit, not exactly close.

i think it'd be up top tho.

[C1erArt]

If they ever wanted to get funding for a hotel or water park they would need a venture capital firm. The consulting start up firm I worked for originally had 4 partners and about 10 consultants. One was a ‘silent’ partner that provided the funding and the other 3 ran the company. But in order to grow they sold part ownership to a small and then to a midsize venture capital. The partners still run things, and in fact ‘took over’ management of a smaller consulting group they already had. There are about 300 consultants now all around the world from buying out other small consultant groups and folding them in.

I wonder if the decision to stop free over 70 passes was a precondition to the sale.

[toast21602]

Whoooooooooeiii. 

[C1erArt]

That’s interesting. They finance/own but don’t operate? That could be right up Barb’s alley. Although even if still in charge, she wouldn’t have control . . .

Wouldn’t have control of capital expenditures but could have a fair amount of freedom in day to day operations.

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

4 hours ago, C1erArt said:

If they ever wanted to get funding for a hotel or water park they would need a venture capital firm. The consulting start up firm I worked for originally had 4 partners and about 10 consultants. One was a ‘silent’ partner that provided the funding and the other 3 ran the company. But in order to grow they sold part ownership to a small and then to a midsize venture capital. The partners still run things, and in fact ‘took over’ management of a smaller consulting group they already had. There are about 300 consultants now all around the world from buying out other small consultant groups and folding them in.

I wonder if the decision to stop free over 70 passes was a precondition to the sale.

The over 70 passs are $70 I heard 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

12 hours ago, Benm said:

i was thinking that. the closest one off the top of my head is at the mahoning valley exit, not exactly close.

i think it'd be up top tho.

They had trouble getting approval for a hotel by the summit lodge due to its proximity to the Appalachian trail. 

[Ski2Live Live2Ski]

Interesting stuff. Given a bunch of the properties on that list are on Epic pass I expect it could mean Blue going Epic and be announced Tues as part of the Epic pass announcement.

Kind of doubt Epic would continue VIP line as they aim for consistent operations.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Ski2Live Live2Ski

[JFskiDan]

27 minutes ago, Ski2Live Live2Ski said:

Interesting stuff. Given a bunch of the properties on that list are on Epic pass I expect it could mean Blue going Epic and be announced Tues as part of the Epic pass announcement.

Kind of doubt Epic would continue VIP line as they aim for consistent operations.

Holy fuck, you sure do drink the Vail Kool-Aid, dont you?

Not that there is no way that could happen, but i think its very unlikely.  the word Vail hasnt been thrown around on this at all. 

Camelback is on the list for both KSL and EPR, and still not on the Epic or Ikon.  

[Ski2Live Live2Ski]

Didn't see CBk on the list of ski areas at linked EPR site. 

Expecting to most likely switch from Vail this year but waiting for tomorrow's announcement to decide. If Blue did go Vail I can't imagine how crowded their peak times would be.

[Kyle]

Probably a unnoticeable increase to peak crowds now 

[JFskiDan]

12 minutes ago, Ski2Live Live2Ski said:

Didn't see CBk on the list of ski areas at linked EPR site. 

Expecting to most likely switch from Vail this year but waiting for tomorrow's announcement to decide. If Blue did go Vail I can't imagine how crowded their peak times would be.

 

 

[toast21602]

56 minutes ago, Ski2Live Live2Ski said:

Didn't see CBk on the list of ski areas at linked EPR site. 

Expecting to most likely switch from Vail this year but waiting for tomorrow's announcement to decide. If Blue did go Vail I can't imagine how crowded their peak times would be.

stop.

[Schif]

To me this whole thing sounds a lot more like a financing deal than an operations one. 

[trackbiker]

1 hour ago, Schif said:

To me this whole thing sounds a lot more like a financing deal than an operations one. 

Correct. EPR bought the Vail properties before Vail bought the ski operations. EPR buys the property and leases it back to the operators.  They are a real estate investment company. That provides capital for new lifts and other improvements.  I think they also own a lot of the Boyne properties and other non skiing resort properties.

[enjoralas]

Basically, most likely scenario is Barb’s getting a landlord.

 

Although I’m not sure that scenario would necessitate firing/re-hiring all the employees. 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Hopefully the employees will still receive gift cards as a bonus. 

Edited March 22, 2021 by GrilledSteezeSandwich

[indiggio]

32 minutes ago, enjoralas said:

Although I’m not sure that scenario would necessitate firing/re-hiring all the employees. 

Although I've heard rumors that that's what's going to happen, unfortunately for them.

Edited March 22, 2021 by indiggio

[Schif]

The firing and rehiring is likely so that any kind of benefits or PTO or other owed accruals for the employees are wiped off of the books and the new holding company can start completely fresh. I would imagine the less fun things to talk about like restructuring the debt on snowcats or other stuff like that is also happening so that the new company is coming in with the kind of books and balance sheet that they want. 

[JFskiDan]

5 hours ago, trackbiker said:

Correct. EPR bought the Vail properties before Vail bought the ski operations. EPR buys the property and leases it back to the operators.  They are a real estate investment company. That provides capital for new lifts and other improvements.  I think they also own a lot of the Boyne properties and other non skiing resort properties.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this.  So what did Vail "buy" as far as JF/BB and Hunter, for example?  The right to run the business?   Granted Vail bought Peak for a lump sum, which i assume some of the other properties Peak did  own and operate.   I'm sort of thinking Vail has to own the lifts and snowmaking equipment.  It seems what little they did at Frost (fixing the quad) and BB (Taking down part of Edelweiss or whatever lift it was), happened on their dime. .  

I do get that not owning the property would actually be in Vails best interest, like in the case of JFBB, where, lets face it, they really operate those resorts to get people on their pass.  

[indiggio]

1 hour ago, Schif said:

The firing and rehiring is likely so that any kind of benefits or PTO or other owed accruals for the employees are wiped off of the books and the new holding company can start completely fresh. I would imagine the less fun things to talk about like restructuring the debt on snowcats or other stuff like that is also happening so that the new company is coming in with the kind of books and balance sheet that they want. 

Yes, and I imagine employees would NOT be happy about it regarding loss of seniority, drop in pay scale, loss of vacation time (if they have any at all), Blue bucks, etc.   I doubt the new company would bridge anything, as they probably believe they can just find someone to replace them.

[Schif]

15 minutes ago, indiggio said:

Yes, and I imagine employees would NOT be happy about it regarding loss of seniority, drop in pay scale, loss of vacation time (if they have any at all), Blue bucks, etc.   I doubt the new company would bridge anything, as they probably believe they can just find someone to replace them.

Oh I'm sure they are going to be upset, but at the same time they would have to be paid out for anything that they had saved up. 

I think things will remain fairly status quo regardless of what this new company wants to do. Palmerton has got to be a constrained labor market so it's got to be difficult to replace anyone and they will find out quick if they try to lowball the people that do work there and if they walk away it will be difficult trying to backfill them if they offer too little. 

[Justo8484]

1 hour ago, Schif said:

Oh I'm sure they are going to be upset, but at the same time they would have to be paid out for anything that they had saved up. 

I think things will remain fairly status quo regardless of what this new company wants to do. Palmerton has got to be a constrained labor market so it's got to be difficult to replace anyone and they will find out quick if they try to lowball the people that do work there and if they walk away it will be difficult trying to backfill them if they offer too little. 

This is an interesting point to me, and it kinda seems like it played out a little bit with the Vail purchase of other smaller east coast areas. In their normal takeover scenario, lets say somewhere like whistler, you're not really relying on the local talent pool to fill jobs loading lifts, cleaning tables, making fries, etc. They fill those jobs with J1 visas (probably not called J1 in canada but whatever). People are traveling from elsewhere around the world to work there because it's whistler, it's awesome, and anybody who wants to ski bum it for a year or two wants to be there. That's not the case with blue. It sounded like JFBB was having a hard time staffing up this year. I could see blue running into similar problems if whatever is going down ends up pissing off a bunch of the current employees to the point of them not wanting to or being invited to come back. Obviously all speculation at this point until something concrete is announced.

[toast21602]

5 minutes ago, Justo8484 said:

This is an interesting point to me, and it kinda seems like it played out a little bit with the Vail purchase of other smaller east coast areas. In their normal takeover scenario, lets say somewhere like whistler, you're not really relying on the local talent pool to fill jobs loading lifts, cleaning tables, making fries, etc. They fill those jobs with J1 visas (probably not called J1 in canada but whatever). People are traveling from elsewhere around the world to work there because it's whistler, it's awesome, and anybody who wants to ski bum it for a year or two wants to be there. That's not the case with blue. It sounded like JFBB was having a hard time staffing up this year. I could see blue running into similar problems if whatever is going down ends up pissing off a bunch of the current employees to the point of them not wanting to or being invited to come back. Obviously all speculation at this point until something concrete is announced.

Might pick up extra time there since pass prices have gone up so much 

[C1erArt]

The firing and rehiring is likely so that any kind of benefits or PTO or other owed accruals for the employees are wiped off of the books and the new holding company can start completely fresh. I would imagine the less fun things to talk about like restructuring the debt on snowcats or other stuff like that is also happening so that the new company is coming in with the kind of books and balance sheet that they want. 

Depends how much Barb stands up for the employees. Everything is negotiable.

[C1erArt]

Seemed to be surveyors at the top of the high speed lifts this morning. Might have just been checking snore depth.