Vail Resorts - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Vail Resorts, Inc. runs four ski resorts in Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, as well as two in Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the United States. At a surface elevation of , it is located along the border between California and Nevada, west of Carson City. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America. Its depth is , making it the USA's second-deepest...

(on the California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

-Nevada

Nevada

Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

border) and a summer resort in Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

. They also own luxury resort hotels throughout the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The company trades on the New York Stock Exchange, symbol MTN. The company is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado

Broomfield, Colorado

The City and County of Broomfield is a prominent suburb and tier of the Denver metropolitan area in the State of Colorado of the United States. Broomfield has a consolidated city and county government which operates under Article XX, Sections 10-13 of the Constitution of the State of Colorado. The...

History

Originally founded as Vail Associates by Pete Seibert

Pete Seibert

Peter W. Seibert was an American skier and the founder of Vail Ski Resort in Colorado. In 1980 he was inducted into the Colorado Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame....

(former WWII 10th Mountain Division

10th Mountain Division

The 10th Mountain Division is a light infantry division of the United States Army based at Fort Drum, New York. It is a subordinate unit of the XVIII Airborne Corps and the only division-sized element of the U.S. Army to specialize in fighting under harsh terrain and weather conditions...

ski trooper) in 1962, Vail Associates changed its name to Vail Resorts in 1996 when it went public after Gillette Holdings (owned by George Gillette) went bankrupt. Apollo Management

Apollo Management

Apollo Global Management, LLC is a private equity investment firm, founded in 1990 by former Drexel Burnham Lambert banker Leon Black. The firm specializes in leveraged buyout transactions and purchases of distressed securities involving corporate restructuring, special situations and industry...

, headed by Leon Black

Leon Black

Leon David Black is an American businessman and money manager, with a focus on leveraged buyouts and private equity. He is a son of Eli M. Black , a prominent businessman who controlled the United Brands Company and committed suicide when caught paying bribes to the President of Honduras...

, bought the company out of bankruptcy and took Vail Resorts public, controlling Vail Resorts through its growth until around 2003, when Apollo divested themselves of the controlling interest. Former Apollo executive, Rob Katz, currently runs the company. The skating rink at Beaver Creek was named the Black Family Skating Rink after Leon Black.

Resorts

Vail Resorts operates the Vail

Vail Ski Resort

Vail Ski Resort is located in Eagle County, Colorado, next to the town of Vail. Vail Mountain, at , is the largest single mountain ski resort in the United States, featuring seven bowls and intermediate gladed terrain in Blue Sky Basin...

, Beaver Creek

Beaver Creek Resort

Beaver Creek Resort is a major United States ski resort near Avon, Colorado, run by Vail Resorts. The resort comprises three villages, the main Beaver Creek Village, Bachelor Gulch, and Arrowhead to the west...

, Breckenridge

Breckenridge Ski Resort

Breckenridge Ski Resort, or just Breck, is perenially one of North America's top 2 most visited ski resorts, and is located in Summit County, Colorado in the town of Breckenridge...

, and Keystone

Keystone Resort

Keystone Resort is the largest ski resort in Summit County located in Keystone, Colorado, United States. It was founded on November 21, 1970 by Max Dercum. The resort is owned and operated by Vail Resorts which also operates three other resorts in the state and Heavenly Ski Resort and Northstar...

ski areas in Colorado, Northstar at Tahoe

Northstar at Tahoe

Northstar California is a year-round resort situated near the North Shore of Lake Tahoe in Placer County, California, approximately from the San Francisco Bay Area...

and Heavenly Ski Resort

Heavenly Ski Resort

Heavenly Mountain Resort is a ski resort located on the California-Nevada border in South Lake Tahoe. It has 97 runs and 30 lifts that are spread between California and Nevada and four base facilities...

on the California-Nevada border. It acquired the Grand Teton Lodge Company within the Grand Teton National Park

Grand Teton National Park

Grand Teton National Park is a United States National Park located in northwestern Wyoming, U.S. The Park consists of approximately and includes the major peaks of the long Teton Range as well as most of the northern sections of the valley known as Jackson Hole. Only south of Yellowstone...

in Wyoming in 1999. The GTLC properties include the Jenny Lake Lodge, Jackson Lake Lodge

Jackson Lake Lodge

Jackson Lake Lodge is located in Grand Teton National Park, in the U. S. state of Wyoming. The lodge has 385 rooms, a restaurant, conference rooms, and offers numerous recreational opportunities. The lodge is managed by the Grand Teton Lodge Company, and is not affiliated with the National Park...

, and Colter Bay Village.

On October 25th 2010,Vail Resorts Inc. has announced acquisition of Northstar-at-Tahoe

Northstar at Tahoe

Northstar California is a year-round resort situated near the North Shore of Lake Tahoe in Placer County, California, approximately from the San Francisco Bay Area...

Resort in California for $63 million cash.

RockResorts

In 2001, Vail Resorts acquired the renowned luxury hotel chain Rockresorts

Rockresorts

RockResorts is a hotel brand with roots in the 1950s. Laurance Rockefeller, founder, began building a series of resorts in 1956 with the establishment of Caneel Bay on St. John in the United States Virgin Islands...

, which contributed substantially to their brand recognition. RockResorts (with the second "R" now capitalized) was named for its original owners, the Rockefeller Family

Rockefeller family

The Rockefeller family , the Cleveland family of John D. Rockefeller and his brother William Rockefeller , is an American industrial, banking, and political family of German origin that made one of the world's largest private fortunes in the oil business during the late 19th and early 20th...

. As of June 2009, the properties include:

Balcones Del Atlantico, Las Terranas, Dominican Rupublic

Tempo Miami, Miami, FL

The Pines Lodge, CO

The Lodge at Vail, CO

La Posada de Santa Fe Resort & Spa, NM

Snake River Lodge & Spa, WY

Hotel Jerome, Aspen, CO

The Osprey at Beaver Creek, CO

The Arrabelle at Vail Square, CO

The Landings at St. Lucia, West Indies

Subsidiaries and Affiliates

All of the company's retail operations are run by a smaller company, [Specialty Sports Venture, aka SSV], of which Vail owns 70%. The owners of the other 30% are the Gart Brothers, specifically Tom Gart, Ken Gart and John Gart. The Gart family have been in the sporting goods business for 3 generations and were the former owners of Gart Sports, the large chain of sporting goods stores in the western US. Gart Sports was sold by the Gart family in the 1990s and then recently sold again to Sports Authority

Sports Authority

The Sports Authority, Inc. is one of the largest sporting goods retailers in the United States. It is headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, and operates more than 460 stores in 45 U.S...

, which discontinued the use of the Gart Sports name in 2006. In 2010, Vail completed the buyout of the Specialty Sports Venture brand and is now the 100% owner of all SSV operations. In addition to all of the ski shops in the Vail Resorts portfolio of ski areas, the SSV chain of stores includes Bicycle Village in Denver, Colorado Ski & Golf, Boulder Ski Deals, Aspen Sports, Telluride Sports and Mountain Sports Outlet in Summit County and Glenwood Springs and many others. SSV is reportedly the largest Trek bicycles dealer in the world.

Vail Resorts also owns just over 50% of Slifer, Smith and Frampton (SSF) Vail Real Estate, the largest real estate brokerage company in the Vail region, controlling over 70% of the real estate transactions in the market. Slifer, Smith and Frampton was called Slifer, Smith and Frampton/Vail Associates Real Estate, but they dropped the "Vail Associates" name in 2003. The founders of SSF are Rod Slifer, a former ski instructor who was recently the mayor of the Town of Vail, Mark Smith, a real estate broker/turned developer who currently also runs East West Partners with Harry Frampton, who was the former President of Vail Associates and currently owns East West Partners. East West Partners has built most of the large building that make up the Beaver Creek Village, including the Marketplace Building, Village Hall

Village hall

In the United States, a village hall is the seat of government for villages. It functions much as a city hall does within cities.In the United Kingdom, a village hall is usually a building within a village which contains at least one large room, usually owned by and run for the benefit of the local...

and One Beaver Creek. They also run the Park Hyatt, the Poste Montane and the Hyatt's Vacation Club (fractional ownership

Fractional Ownership

In business, fractional ownership is a percentage share of an expensive asset. Shares are sold to individual owners. A fractional owner enjoys priorities and privileges, such as reduced rates, priority access on holidays and income sharing. Typically, a company manages the asset on behalf of the...

).

Vail Resorts Development Company (VRDC) is the wholly owned real estate development company that Vail Resorts uses to develop all of its company-owned real estate, other than the projects that East West Partners develops. VRDC developed Bachelor's Gulch, one of the most upscale, ski-in/ski-out resorts in the business with its own Ritz Carlton and just over 100 slopeside mansions. President Gerald Ford kept his ski house in the Strawberry Park section of Beaver Creek, which is between Beaver Creek and Bachelor's Gulch. Arrowhead is the third "peak" in the heavily promoted "village to village ski experience" in which you can ski from Beaver Creek to Bachelor's Gulch to Arrowhead and back again. Arrowhead was a separate ski area unrelated to Beaver Creek for years before they were finally bought by Vail Associates in the early 1990s. VRDC also developed "club" division of Vail Resorts, including the Beaver Creek Club, the Arrowhead Alpine Club, and Game Creek Club (in Vail). VRDC also developed Red Sky Ranch in Wolcott (approximate 10 miles (16.1 km) west of Beaver Creek), which includes two golf courses and many million dollar golf course homes. All of these clubs are now operated by the "Mountain Division" of Vail Resorts.

External links

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