4 replies to this topic

[SkiBachelor]

Here's an interesting story about an British entrepreneur who purchased a Swiss ski area with four lifts for only 1 Swiss franc.

http://www.nytimes.c...pe/22ernen.html

[Lift Dinosaur]

Nice story. I wish him luck!

Dino

[Snoqualmie guy]

Maybe I missed something, but how does this British guy expect to make money if all the others have failed? And with the snow leaving?

[SkiBachelor]

The owners of popular ski resorts like Ski Bromont, Tremblant and Vail have gone broke while running them, but these mountains have come back to life with the help of new investors with grand ideas and money for new capital improvements.

[Winterhighland]

The new owners have funds to invest in redeveloping the infrastructure and expanding it (there is apparently a plateau area above the current lifts that would make for great novice/early intermediate terrain). The previous owners were unable to re-invest. That might make a difference but from coverage this side of the pond the main hope they have is that this resort came so close to shutting that they will be able to finally get nearby resorts to all join together to offer a single lift pass, ultimately some areas will have capacity to be lift connected, others linked by shuttle bus, but a lot more lifts and variety on one pass that will be marketed together.

It's a bit unfortunate for us, because they'd been quite seriously thinking about buying Glencoe and/or Glenshee in Scotland when this place came on the market for $1 (Not quite that simple, I think they had to put down about $300,000 to cover 1st season costs). Now their looking at a $45m investment in the ski infrastructure over there.

If anyone has a spare $45m, please PM me, I know a snowsports area just down the road from me here in Scotland where that could easily be sunk....