PEAK RESORTS acquired by VAIL RESORTS

Vail Resorts acquired Peak Resorts, the Missouri-based ski area operator, under a merger agreement announced on 22 July 2019 and completed on 24 September. Shareholders received $11.00 in cash for each share. Peak Resorts generated revenue of $100–200M and an EBITDA of $25–50M. Vail Resorts funded the purchase with cash on its balance sheet, its existing revolving facility and an expansion of its credit lines, and assumed or refinanced the company’s outstanding debt. The acquisition added 17 ski areas across Vermont, New York, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri and Indiana. Their value lay in their location: unlike Vail Resorts’ destination resorts in the Rocky Mountains, these are day-trip areas within driving distance of New York, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, Cleveland, St. Louis and other major cities, visited repeatedly through the season rather than once a year. That reach extended Vail Resorts’ network in the north-east, mid-Atlantic and midwest, where it previously operated only around Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit, and widened the base of season pass holders it could convert towards its western destination resorts. The group planned to upgrade the acquired areas and to raise their annual capital spending.