Liberty Mountain

Peak Resorts to Buy Three Pennsylvania Mountains

Peter Landsman8 Comments

Liberty Mountain, Roundtop Mountain and Whitetail Resort will join Peak Resorts before the end of the year, the companies announced this morning.  Privately-held Snow Time Inc. operates the three southern Pennsylvania properties, which generated approximately $11 million in EBITDA last year with more than 600,000 skier visits.  Peak Resorts (SKIS) is traded on the Nasdaq and currently runs 14 mountain resorts in Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Vermont.  The $76 million cash and stock deal represents a multiple of approximately 6.8 times earnings and is expected to close prior to the beginning of the 2018-19 ski season.  Liberty, Roundtop and Whitetail operate a combined 18 lifts, almost all of them built by Doppelmayr and CTEC.

“The transformative acquisition of Snow Time offers a rare opportunity for Peak Resorts to dramatically grow our company by expanding the number of destinations for our Peak Pass holders in the Northeast while growing our presence in the very attractive and densely populated markets of Baltimore and Washington, D.C.,” said Timothy Boyd, President and Chief Executive Officer of Peak Resorts. “Over the course of more than 50 years, Irvin Naylor and his team have established three exceptionally well cared for mountain resorts across the southern tier of Pennsylvania and we are delighted to welcome these wonderful facilities and the Snow Time team to the Peak Resorts family. Furthermore, we expect the addition of these turn-key resorts to our portfolio ahead of the 2018/2019 ski season will result in immediate financial benefits for Peak Resorts.”  The new, larger Peak will total 17 mountains with 109 aerial lifts upon closing.

News Roundup: Oops

Peter Landsman16 Comments
  • Belleayre’s new gondola may not have much vertical but will be more than 6,700 feet long.
  • New photo tours of the upcoming Orange and White lines in La Paz show how gondolas can be adapted to the urban landscape with innovative station designs.
  • Urban gondolas were profiled prominently in Sunday’s New York Times.
  • Skytrac will finish the Stagecoach lift at Big Sky this fall, a project which Moonlight Basin began in 2008.  In addition, Challenger and the Tram are getting new haul ropes and Powder Seeker a chair storage facility.  Thanks William Bryan for the photos.
  • At Spanish Peaks, the Flatiron lift will be next to go in.
  • BMF drops one of the Brest Cable Car’s cabins from a crane while performing annual maintenance.  One-cabin operation will continue while Gangloff builds a new one over the next six to nine months.
  • Taos releases renderings of its re-imagined learning center featuring new Leitner-Poma and Skytrac lifts.
  • Thank you Michael Weise for these sweet photos of Eldora’s six-pack progress:

News Roundup: Playing Field

Peter Landsman1 Comment
  • 14-cabin 3S proposed to cross Lake Zurich in Switzerland.
  • The second tallest building west of the Mississippi will include an aerial tram-like system built by Leitner-Poma.
  • BMF will build its first gondola in France and seventh gondola overall this summer near Alp d’Huez.
  • Mi TelefĂ©rico breaks ground today for its 13th and 14th gondolas. The four station, 159 cabin Sky Blue line will join the Red, Yellow, Green and Blue lines already operating and the Orange, White and Purple lines under construction.
  • North Korea is building a second ski resort.
  • Liberty Mountain delays J-Bar replacement project, saying in a statement, “We had hoped to put the triple chair in this summer but unfortunately it will not be happening…We are still planning on making this change in the future.” Liberty acquired one of Ascutney’s CTEC triples in 2013.
  • Aspen Mountain turns back toward a longer and lower 1A detachable.
  • As state-owned Belleayre becomes the smallest North American ski resort ever to build a gondola, New York Ski Blog calls for low-interest infrastructure financing for 45 privately-owned mountains in the Empire State.
  • The Jay Peak Tram is back with many upgraded components after a spring full of hard work.  Interestingly, new controls are from Doppelmayr rather than Frey.
  • Black Hawk flies old Montezuma towers off Dercum Mountain at Keystone.
  • Marshall Mountain, MT can be yours for $2.95 million, including a 1972 Thiokol triple and an uninstalled 1969 Hall double from Grand Targhee.
  • Snow King gondola plan advances.
  • No visible work at Saddleback yet.
  • Nonprofit contracts SE Group to study the feasibility of reopening an alpine ski area on the site of the former Colby College ski area in Maine.  Here’s how it looked in 2012:

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News Roundup: Layoffs at Burke

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