Vail Resorts closed a $41 million deal to acquire Stowe Mountain Resort, one of Vermont’s best-known — and priciest — ski resorts, the company announced Wednesday.
Stowe, a high-end destination for skiers and snowboarders, will be Vail’s first resort on the East Coast and its 13th ski-area property. The resort will be included on the 2017-2018 winter EPIC pass, a $859 season pass that offers customers access to 45 resorts across the world. For Vermont skiers and snowboarders, this is a big deal. This past winter, season passes for Stowe Mountain cost $2,000 – the most expensive lift tickets in New England.
Original negotiations with AIG Global Real Estate priced Stowe Mountain Resort at $50 million for acquisition, but based on the resort’s cash flow between Nov. 1 and closing, the price was reduced to $41 million as part of the agreed-upon terms.
Ski resorts are typically priced at eight to 10 times the amount of their annual cash flow, or earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). Based on an estimated $5 million EBITDA for Stowe Mountain, the price for the acquisition was on the lower end of the spectrum. This is in contrast to Vail Resorts’ last deal in Canada where it paid more than $1 billion to buy Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia.
As part of the deal, Vail Resorts acquired all of the assets related to the mountain operations of the resort, including base area skier services such as lift-ticket offices, retail and rental spaces, and ski and snowboard school facilities.
“We’re thrilled to add Stowe Mountain Resort to our family of world-class mountain resorts,” wrote Rob Katz, chairman and chief executive officer of Vail Resorts, in a statement to The Denver Post. “With the investments in both mountain infrastructure and base area facilities that AIG has made over the years, Stowe Mountain Resort has become the premier, high-end resort for East Coast skiers and snowboarders, and we look forward to continuing to enhance the experience for all of our guests.”
