AUGUST 2024 POWDR SELLS KILLINGTON / PICO, VT, TO THE KILLINGTON INDEPENDENCE GROUP
OCTOBER 2024 INDY PASS AND ENTABENI SYSTEMS OWNER ERIK MOGENSEN ACQUIRES BLACK MOUNTAIN, NH
NOVEMBER 2024 TECH INVESTOR RHETT MCNULTY PURCHASES KISSING BRIDGE, NY
UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP
Is it up to the independents to determine the future health of skiing?
war for Killington, the premier resort in the East, but instead he recruited the .01 percenters. Cumming called Phill Gross, the co-founder of Adage Capital Man- agement and a Killington second-home owner who had learned to ski there in 1985. Gross dialed his friend Michael Ferri, another Killington second-home owner and the owner of the Valvoline Instant Oil Change and Mr. Sparkle Car Wash franchises. Both men have skied around the world and own property at the Yellowstone Club, but their love of Killington started it all. “We have to do this,” said Ferri, who first skied there in 1970 and has three sons who attended the Killington Mountain School.
The new owners had complete con- fidence in the stewardship of president and CEO Mike Solimano and his team, and they offered life-changing equity to a dozen top managers. This wasn’t a turn- around; Killington was already profit- able. Otherwise, “I don’t think we would have done it,” Ferri says. Also critical: They are bullish on the eventual completion of Killington’s $3 billion base village and the 25-year mas- ter plan of Toronto-based developer Great Gulf, which along with Powdr is also a partner in the new ownership group. Solimano started in the Killington finance department 21 years ago, under the highly leveraged American Skiing Company. In his first week, ASC couldn’t meet payroll, and Solimano handled the layoffs. In the ensuing years, he survived and then thrived along with the resort’s fortunes. Solimano praised Powdr’s own- ership and investments, but he admits there were years when the resort could barely buy a snowcat. This is a new world, and Killington’s owners have committed $60 million in capital spending its first two seasons. They also strike the perfect balance of oversight: “They are interested,” Solima- no says, “but not too interested.” The scale of the Killington owner- ship can’t be copied in the rest of the ski world, but perhaps the basics can. Local
A handful of intriguing ownership mod- els have popped up in the past year, portending a potential return to the starry-eyed past, when resort owners hung cable rather than hosting analyst calls. The new models include a group of high-net-worth second-home own- ers buying Killington; the potentially heroic but problematic municipal pur- chase of Eldora Mountain Resort; and the promising three-class ownership model formed by Indy Pass owner Eric Mogensen at Black Mountain, N.H.; alongside revival efforts at legacy in- dependents like Burke Mountain, Vt., and Kissing Bridge, N.Y. It’s difficult to call this a trend away from conglomeration when Vail Resorts (VR) still owns 42 ski areas and Alterra Mountain Co. counts 19 plus some 50 more partner resorts on its Ikon Pass. But conglomerate growth has slowed or even stopped in North America, Epic Pass growth has peaked, and it’s an exciting (if challenging) time to be an indy.
Killington’s Win-Win: Not Duplicable?
The two became managing partners of the fittingly named Killington Indepen- dence Group, whose first charge was to ensure that the resort did not go to unlimited access on the Ikon Pass. They recruited other investors among the affluent second-home owners and soon found a dozen takers. The rules were simple: We are not owner-managers but caretakers, don’t expect liquidity or big returns for 10 years, keep a low profile, and don’t expect any perks. Those who wanted a quick buck or a traditional investment quickly dropped out.
BACKSTORY: HOW WE GOT HERE
In 2023, John Cumming’s Powdr Corp. decided to at least partially cash out of the ski resort business after a largely successful and passionate 30-year run. Powdr ultimately packaged five resorts, led by Killington/Pico, Vt., and includ- ing Eldora, Colo., Mt. Bachelor, Ore., and British Columbia’s SilverStar. A deal was struck with Alterra, which would have given it more owned mountains in its arms race with VR. Few people would ever know the significance of this transaction, because it fell apart in due diligence. So it was on to Plan B for Powdr: Selling the resorts individually—and in doing so, creating intriguing ownership models.
GAINING INDEPENDENCE Cumming might have opened a bidding
New Killington / Pico owners Phill Gross (left) and Michael Ferri (right) with resort chief Mike Solimano.
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