Persistent rumors have been flying that Vail, the Colorado ski resort giant, is poised to purchase Stowe Mountain Resort.
Like an uncertain winter weather pattern, it remains to be seen whether the rumor will stick, or simply pass on by.
More than a dozen local people contacted this week said they’ve heard the rumors, but officials from both Vail and Stowe remain tight-lipped.
“We don’t comment on or speculate about acquisition rumors,” Kelly Ladyga, vice president of communications for Vail Resorts Inc., wrote in an email Monday.
On the phone Wednesday, Michael Colbourn, Stowe Mountain Resort’s vice president of marketing, sales and communication, had a similar statement: “We are not able to comment on speculation or rumors.”
However, a person in Vail’s corporate office said Tuesday that the company was preparing a press release regarding the deal. That press release was not available by Wednesday afternoon, when this paper went to press.
Rumor mill on overdrive
When it comes to these types of rumors, former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld may have described it most succinctly.
There are “known knowns,” which is what Vail and Stowe resort officials know but won’t say. And then there are “known unknowns,” which is the kind of murmuring in which a substantial percentage of the local ski and ride population is engaging.
Kim Brown, a Waterbury building designer and longtime ski columnist for the Stowe Reporter, said he has being skiing Stowe since the 1951-52 season. So this isn’t the first time he’s heard rumors like this over the years, right?
“In fact, it is,” Brown said Wednesday. “This is unprecedented.”
Brown — along with dozens of people online, on Main Street, on chairlifts and in bars — said he heard the deal went down over the weekend. All 15 people in the Octagon Wednesday morning were talking about it, he said (Brown has more in this week’s column).
One part of the rumor was squelched decidedly by a resort official, but he isn’t from Stowe or Vail, and he did it with a timely political reference of his own. There had been talk that Vail was interested in Smugglers’ Notch Ski Resort, situated just a short hike up and over Spruce Peak from Stowe. But according to Bill Stritzler, owner and managing director at Smuggs, that just isn’t so.
“Anything you hear about Smugglers’ talking with Vail Resorts about a possible deal is sincerely ‘fake news,’” Stritzler said.
Vail name business boon?
A major merger like this could have ripple effects throughout the local hotel and hospitality business. All of a sudden, Stowe — the mountain resort and the town — could become part of a network of other storied resorts and their towns.
Patti Clark is innkeeper at the Green Mountain Inn and a member of Stowe Area Association’s executive board. She said that while the resort’s longtime owner, American International Group, has “done a great job keeping Stowe a great ski mountain,” she thinks Vail would be a natural fit.
“My reaction when I heard the rumor was that it could be very positive for Stowe,” Clark said. “Certainly with their reputation, what they’ve done with the West, they could bring it east.”
Russ Barr, CEO of Stowe Aviation, the fixed-base operator at the Morrisville-Stowe State Airport, hopes there could be “synergies” if the Vail deal goes through.
“You’ve got a world-class ski resort company that is going to bring a lot to the table,” Barr said.
Earlier this month, 17 planes came and went from the airport over a weekend, a record for the company. The airport is too small to handle any flights that could come in directly from Colorado looking for a Vail subsidiary in New England, but that’s OK, since local business owners could bank on new visitors drawn to a resort with the Vail name.
“We don’t need to open to Colorado,” Barr said. “We just need the 72 million people within a 90-minute flight of here.”
Mary Windler, owner of Stowe Cider and a near-daily skier and rider, said she was most concerned about the impact a sale would have on lift ticket and pass prices, and on employees being able to keep their jobs. Vail Resorts offers the Epic Pass, which allows near unfettered access to a dozen ski areas, for just over $800. Stowe’s season pass is roughly double that.
“It’s unaffordable for most people in this state. I know people who grew up here, were born and raised here, who can’t afford to ski at their own mountain,” Windler said.
Brown said he did some reading about Vail over the past few days, and he thinks the company would do right by Stowe employees. The resort is the largest economic driver in its county.
“There seems to be a philosophy emerging here, that Vail doesn’t like to replace local management,” Brown said.
Steeped in history
Vail has 10 large mountain resorts and three smaller urban ski areas in its collection. The big ones: Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone in Colorado; Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood in Lake Tahoe (both California and Nevada); Park City in Utah; Whistler/Blackcomb in British Columbia, Canada; and Perisher in New South Wales, Australia.
The smaller ones: Wilmot Mountain in Wisconsin, Afton Alps in Minnesota and Mt. Brighton in Michigan. The company also owns or manages hotels under the RockResort brand, as well as the Grand Teton Lodge Company in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
It is a publicly held company with New York Stock Exchange ticker MTN. As of press time, Vail Resorts was selling on Wall Street at $169 a share, nearly triple what it was worth five years ago.
How big is the Vail name in the ski industry? The company owns the website domain name snow.com, the company’s consumer portal.
Last year, Vail bought Canadian ski resort Whistler Blackcomb. The resort’s two mountains have more than 8,000 acres of skiable terrain and it’s the largest ski resort in North America. Vail paid $1.05 billion for it, according to Bloomberg News.
Smaller, but still Stowe
Stowe has long been associated with one owner, AIG, and particularly its founder, Cornelius Vander (C.V.) Starr.
One of Stowe’s famed “Front Four” trails is Starr, named after him — the others are Goat, National and Liftline.
But AIG went through a shakeup in 2008, when the federal government bailed the insurance company out, to the tune of $180 billion.
Barr is “no fan” of AIG, and he would like to see the ski resort owned by a ski resort company.
Stowe has long touted itself as the Ski Capital of the East, and Brown thinks being part of the Vail family could boost that reputation. Echoing Barr, he said there are tens of millions of people within a five- or six-hour drive of Stowe who would head right on up if it offered the perks Vail does.
He speculates that Vail is interested in Stowe as a 12-month resort, and Stowe’s new zip line and treetop adventure course and other summer offerings might sweeten the pot. He wouldn’t be surprised if Vail would sink resources into developing the Toll Road area of the resort, which would add more parking, more lift access to the main resort and more terrain.
Brown’s other prognostication: Don’t be surprised if the company works overtime trying to bring a World Cup to Stowe.
Windler, for all her concerns for Stowe’s employees “who work their butts off up there,” thinks a Vail-Stowe partnership could have good potential.
“Change is inevitable, and let’s hope they want to change it for the better,” she said. “Because Stowe is pretty frickin’ awesome, even when it rains.”
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