Hey you investment types...
April 9, 2006
Links to a rumor thread. That's trustworthy info.
Intrawest is a huge company. If it was to be sold, someone would buy it whole. If the goal is to buy it and sell off the different mountains, Intrawest would just sell off the different mountains. They've been too smart over the years to come out too stupid now.
Plus, Intrawest has been the model that everyone else has copied for years. I can't see them just selling. The more likely scenario, some rich bastard doing a hostile takeover by buying up all the stock.
That is what Pirate Capital is trying to do. They own 10% of the stock and are buying more. Thay want to force a sale of the whole company.
Aren't the 2010 olympics at Whistler? That seems like it would create quite a lot of uncertainty for an event of that magnitude.
Quote:
Links to a rumor thread. That's trustworthy info.
Hence my admittance that it's a rumor, instead of spewing off some speculation as fact. Sorry I didn't take the time to research things. I figured with the snow condition around here it would give us something to talk about.
edited to add the sale of Snowshoe among other things...
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2004/12/13/daily48.html
I've heard they want to transition exclusively to real estate, which would mean eventually selling off the skiing. Sounds like they're subdividing their assets into: recreational, commercial, residential and divesting accordingly. Probably figure that type of bundling can generate larger value-added, as that is roughly how development companies segment themselves (eg- why would someone who owns retail centers want to purchase a condo complex, or a ski hill? Wouldn't make sense so they'd bid a purchase price at a lower multiple than they would if it was exclusively retail).
We heard back in the fall or summer that Intrawest was separating the real estate and ski area operations at Snowshoe and other mountains as part of a business transaction, but that the new real estate company would still be a part of the Intrawest empire. Sounds like this is just confirmation of that older info and the beginning of the next phase of the plan.
The Colonel
Sorry Swimmer, I wasn't trying to take a jab at ya.
