ASC is history
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joegm
New member
"Following payments to ASC's creditors and holders of the company's Series C Preferred Stock, holders of ASC's Common Stock and Class A Common Stock are not expected to receive any payment or distribution for their shares."
les otten ended up hurting a lot more people than he helped.. both on and off the hill.... i don't believe , in the final analysis, that whatever he contributed to the industry outweights the damage he did... i don't give a rat's ass about any pr stories he may put out about how he moved his way up from lift op to whatever he was...look at what a mess killington has become.... i'm glad he got shut out of the sunday river/loaf sale
good freakin riddance to asc and to les.. hoepfully we will not hear from him again anytime soon
les otten ended up hurting a lot more people than he helped.. both on and off the hill.... i don't believe , in the final analysis, that whatever he contributed to the industry outweights the damage he did... i don't give a rat's ass about any pr stories he may put out about how he moved his way up from lift op to whatever he was...look at what a mess killington has become.... i'm glad he got shut out of the sunday river/loaf sale
good freakin riddance to asc and to les.. hoepfully we will not hear from him again anytime soon
tirolerpeter
New member
What did ASC in? Was it their focus on "resort expansion" in a market climate that couldn't sustain it?
If ASC hadn't been dumping so much money into The Canyons (cash that should have been going to the upkeep of its revenue-producing EC areas), I wonder what that resort would look like today.
I would assume that Heavenly and Steamboat are quite profitable. Of course if ASC financed those purchases with junk debt...
The Canyons is the consensus culprit for ASC's downfall. One of the ASC posts referenced a document showing about 350K annual skier visits there.
What were the specifics of "upkeep of its revenue-producing EC areas" that were being neglected, other than the oft-discussed shortening of Killington's season. Were skier visits declining at ASC's eastern areas relative to other eastern areas? Maybe not, but most of the people might have been on the cut-rate season passes?
The Canyons is the consensus culprit for ASC's downfall. One of the ASC posts referenced a document showing about 350K annual skier visits there.
What were the specifics of "upkeep of its revenue-producing EC areas" that were being neglected, other than the oft-discussed shortening of Killington's season. Were skier visits declining at ASC's eastern areas relative to other eastern areas? Maybe not, but most of the people might have been on the cut-rate season passes?
I've never skied at Killington, but there are plenty of people bitching online to support the "all the profits from the EC resorts are being diverted elsewhere" gripe.
Below is an excerpt from a book provided by the resident Kmart nutcase Highway Star (for the whole ugly mess, skim down to posts 11 and 13:
http://tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88251):
Killington has always been a successful resort, with FY ?06 operating profits of $8.23M on revenue of $58.9M. Operating profits in good years should have been as high as $12M or so in recent history, but the data is not publicly available.
The major issue with ASC is that since 2000, a large majority of Killington?s profits have been taken away to pay off a crushing debt load. The last significant capital project completed was the Woodward Reservoir connection in 2000. The last new lift constructed was the K-1 in 1998. Killington has been able to spend roughly $1 million in capital per year in since 2000 ? enough for critical maintenance expenses, and little else. This should all be plainly obvious to anyone skiing at Killington.
In conjunction with this, ASC released the All4One pass with heavy discounts in the spring of 2003 - to get stronger early season pass sales to help make their debt payments, and they realized they could no longer afford to sustain a level of operations that would justify a high pass price.
The season length at Killington went from 202 days in ?02-?03 (and over 200 days in every year prior for the past 20 years), down to roughly 165 days for the last two seasons. There has also been a corresponding falloff in snowmaking quantity/quality, and a decrease in lifts operating on the mountain. But, we all figured, you get what you pay for.
Overall, these changes have sustained traffic at Killington, however, they have moved the resort significantly down-market, hurting the lxocal economy and making it so Killington is no longer directly competitive with other major resorts in the region.
Below is an excerpt from a book provided by the resident Kmart nutcase Highway Star (for the whole ugly mess, skim down to posts 11 and 13:
http://tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88251):
Killington has always been a successful resort, with FY ?06 operating profits of $8.23M on revenue of $58.9M. Operating profits in good years should have been as high as $12M or so in recent history, but the data is not publicly available.
The major issue with ASC is that since 2000, a large majority of Killington?s profits have been taken away to pay off a crushing debt load. The last significant capital project completed was the Woodward Reservoir connection in 2000. The last new lift constructed was the K-1 in 1998. Killington has been able to spend roughly $1 million in capital per year in since 2000 ? enough for critical maintenance expenses, and little else. This should all be plainly obvious to anyone skiing at Killington.
In conjunction with this, ASC released the All4One pass with heavy discounts in the spring of 2003 - to get stronger early season pass sales to help make their debt payments, and they realized they could no longer afford to sustain a level of operations that would justify a high pass price.
The season length at Killington went from 202 days in ?02-?03 (and over 200 days in every year prior for the past 20 years), down to roughly 165 days for the last two seasons. There has also been a corresponding falloff in snowmaking quantity/quality, and a decrease in lifts operating on the mountain. But, we all figured, you get what you pay for.
Overall, these changes have sustained traffic at Killington, however, they have moved the resort significantly down-market, hurting the lxocal economy and making it so Killington is no longer directly competitive with other major resorts in the region.
though the canyons was certainly a money pit, think that was just a small part of the problem. greed, too much too soon, debt ... all financed at incredibly high rates. throw in a couple slow seasons and the whole thing snowballs. seen it first hand myself. a company i was an exec at did the same thing. grow & grow. become the biggest and best. but in reality you're expanding just to stay ahead of your debt load and lenders are happy to buy into it and throw money at you. great idea. you want more money. sure. i remember the bankers being so proud of themselves. we're partners, right ... and then bottom drops out. it all starts with a flawed vision fueled by greed.
after otten bought all those ski areas, how was he gonna pay for them? and as opposed to the conservative though criticised "eat what you kill" route powdr is taking, otten came in with guns blazing. at killington year one we got 3 new lifts including 2 hsqs, new improved snowmaking and broke ground on the grand eyesore ... er summit. the following year we got the k1 gondola. he was gonna do a makeover at ALL those areas. yet skier growth was essentially flat. throw in a couple lean snow years and the fat lady's tuning up. they were gonna save money buying french fries in bulk ...
after otten bought all those ski areas, how was he gonna pay for them? and as opposed to the conservative though criticised "eat what you kill" route powdr is taking, otten came in with guns blazing. at killington year one we got 3 new lifts including 2 hsqs, new improved snowmaking and broke ground on the grand eyesore ... er summit. the following year we got the k1 gondola. he was gonna do a makeover at ALL those areas. yet skier growth was essentially flat. throw in a couple lean snow years and the fat lady's tuning up. they were gonna save money buying french fries in bulk ...
Patrick
Well-known member
I think the previous posts by Admin, James and skiadikt sums up the situation pretty well.
The Otten Empire based at Sunday River prior to ASC was in open warfare with it's previous home at Kmart.
Otten's revolution was to create a new Killington in Maine. Give everything and spend what it takes to make people consider SR instead of K. So let's expends the terrain like crazy, make snow like there's no tomorrow and try to take the ski area open until June, a big grooming felt. All these massive improvements were done in a short period of time in the late 80s/early 90s.
Now SR could be seen as an alternative to K. K had Outer Limits, SR had White Heat, skiing into June, etc. This was a one to one battle that was going to spread out. Otten moved in Kmart's backyard by buying Sugarbush and making some (sic) improvement :roll: . Expensive improvements that in some cases not an improvement and more a mistake and a waste of serious money (see lifts at SB North changes). Kmart moved in Maine with it's purchase of Sugarloaf.
So you have two mini-empire buying ski areas in the New England in it's desire to get the biggest share of the New England market. Empire and ski areas expensions, warfare financed with debt. Les Otten empire eventually gobbled up Kmart empire with all it's debt.
There was a winner and a new ASC was born. One ski area empire which was heavy concentrated in New England with a heavy debt load due to purchases, improvement, etc. ASC was now a big player. It wanted to diversify across North America like Intrawest (another big player). It started investing out West. Then one bad Winter where most Eastern areas suffered and ASC started hurting. The rest is history.
Not sure of the accuracy in the timing these events, but that what I recall.
The Otten Empire based at Sunday River prior to ASC was in open warfare with it's previous home at Kmart.
Otten's revolution was to create a new Killington in Maine. Give everything and spend what it takes to make people consider SR instead of K. So let's expends the terrain like crazy, make snow like there's no tomorrow and try to take the ski area open until June, a big grooming felt. All these massive improvements were done in a short period of time in the late 80s/early 90s.
Now SR could be seen as an alternative to K. K had Outer Limits, SR had White Heat, skiing into June, etc. This was a one to one battle that was going to spread out. Otten moved in Kmart's backyard by buying Sugarbush and making some (sic) improvement :roll: . Expensive improvements that in some cases not an improvement and more a mistake and a waste of serious money (see lifts at SB North changes). Kmart moved in Maine with it's purchase of Sugarloaf.
So you have two mini-empire buying ski areas in the New England in it's desire to get the biggest share of the New England market. Empire and ski areas expensions, warfare financed with debt. Les Otten empire eventually gobbled up Kmart empire with all it's debt.
There was a winner and a new ASC was born. One ski area empire which was heavy concentrated in New England with a heavy debt load due to purchases, improvement, etc. ASC was now a big player. It wanted to diversify across North America like Intrawest (another big player). It started investing out West. Then one bad Winter where most Eastern areas suffered and ASC started hurting. The rest is history.
Not sure of the accuracy in the timing these events, but that what I recall.