ECHO MOUNTAIN TO BE AUCTIONED IN AUGUST

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08 June 2012

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SAM Magazine—Evergreen, Colo., June 8, 2012—Echo Mountain Ski resort will be sold via a sealed-bid auction, with bids due by August 2. Racebrook and its auction affiliate, Sheldon Good & Company, are conducting the sale.

Echo, 35 miles west of downtown Denver, is situated entirely on private land. Owner Gerald Petitt paid $800,000 for the property in the early 2000s, and has invested more than $8 million in improvements over the past decade. The area has a vertical drop of 660 feet, 16 trails, three lifts, and state-of-the art TechnoAlpin snowmaking gear. Less than a third of the resort's 226 acres have been developed. The property ranges from 9,000 to 11,000 feet in elevation.

“We've had six years of steady growth. We had a great season last year, with a substantial increase in revenues over the previous year,” Petitt told SAM. Day ticket revenue rose 50 percent, and overall revenues were up 30 percent. The area recorded 32,000 visits on the season, up seven percent from the prior year.

So why sell? “Echo needs investment for expansion, such as the addition of winter tubing, real development of summer operations, aggressive marketing and promotion, and I'm not prepared to make the necessary investment,” he said. “So it's a good time for someone else to come in. It's time for new ownership to take it to that next level.” Current activities include weddings, mountain biking, hiking, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing in addition to skiing and riding.

Why go the auction route? “It's the right way to sell an ongoing business where you don't want operations to be disrupted,” Petitt said. “If you list a property for sale, you often have fairly long sales period. As an ongoing business, we didn't want to put our staff through that. Also, an August sale provides a new owner time to plan for next year.”

For additional information, call (800) 374-4881 or visit www.echomtnauction.com.