Jay Peak is a resort like no other. At its best, it offers a little slice of powder skiing paradise on the East Coast. It's no secret that, as a whole, it has struggled in recent years, spending more than half a decade in receivership. Today marks what the management hope is a turning point.
Pacific Group Resorts Inc. has been announced as the highest bidder for Jay Peak Resort during an auction today, with the Park City based company offering a $76milliomn takeover. The sale is still subject to court approval, with a hearing set for September 16th. However, the resort released the following statement just an hour or so ago, which looks forward to the future:
"Dear Jay Peaker,
I’m happy to announce that Pacific Group Resorts (PGRI) has secured the winning bid to purchase Jay Peak and will immediately begin the process of preparing for a closing that will take place heading into the fall. These are sentences nearly 7 years in the writing and I’m very happy to share them with you all. For those of us on this side of the operational fence, this has been a long time coming and it’s news that gives us great hope for our future.
But it is those of you on the other side—Season Passholders, Homeowners, Vacationers, Day Trippers, and anyone organized in a way to consider themselves Raised Jay—that we really have to thank for getting this far. Those who stuck with us through the first days of Receivership. Those that, with our staff, navigated 6.5 years of Receivership, 2 years of Covid-impacted operating environments, and those that believed experiences like what we offer at Jay Peak were worth staying connected to—despite those things trying to pull us apart.
During the past 6.5 years, our team has tried to focus on what the opportunity of Receivership presented to us. Refocusing on what was most important, building better relationships with our team members, our community, and stakeholders like those reading this, and trying to position the business in a way that would make responsible growth more manageable as we came under new ownership.
And now with PGRI, an industry leader in running resorts that calibrate well to our particular size and frequency, we are moving forward with a partner that believes, as we do, that people come first, recognize Jay Peak’s reputation within the local community and more broadly in the ski industry, and are as enthusiastic about the future as we are.
Offering written thanks to those of you that helped get us here feels underwhelming—especially to our Canadian core that’s spent the better part of two years away from us, to Vermonters and weekenders that navigated onerous Covid operating protocols to spend time here, and season passholders and homeowners that have consistently made investments in experiences that align with sports that they love and the things they believe in.
Internally, back in 2016, we talked about a new line of before and after being drawn for us. Today, I’m happy to say there’s another one being drawn, a decidedly more hopeful one, and I’m very grateful, as the whole team here is, to be on the other side of it with you.
Thanks again so much.
-Steve"
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We love Jay Peak, we go way back, so we're cautiously hoping for the best. See you on the hill.
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