American Skiing Co. (fka AESK)

[hoopjumpr]

Amazing

American Bulls has this as a strong BUY. This is just confirmation of the fact that there is absolutely no integrity in the market today. Pumpers/Dumpers Liars and out right thieves.

I am buying some shares in October!!!!

American Skiing Co. to sell its last ski area and dissolve
9:42 p.m. 07/16/2007 Provided By AP Worldstream


SALT LAKE CITY, Jul 17, 2007 (AP Worldstream via COMTEX) -- American Skiing Co. said it was selling its last ski area and going out of business.

American Skiing, which owned 10 ski areas as recently as 2001, said Monday it would sell its flagship The Canyons, a 3,700-acre (1,500-hectare) resort in Park City, Utah, for $100 million (EUR 72.56 million) to an affiliate of Toronto-based Talisker Corp., a luxury resort club operator that has invested heavily in lodging at Deer Valley, another Park City resort.

Talisker became owner of land and mineral rights at Deer Valley and Park City Mountain Resort, which are operated by separate companies, when it bought United Park City Mines in 2003.

American Skiing, meanwhile, will "wind down its affairs" by September, said B.J. Fair, president and chief executive of the company.

American Skiing began operating The Canyons in 1997, taking over a tiny ski area called Wolf Mountain. Over the years it invested heavily in mountain and base lodge amenities, adding terrain and lifts as recently as last winter.

It previously announced the sale of Maine's two largest ski areas - Sunday River and Sugarloaf/USA - leaving The Canyons as its last resort.

American Skiing's majority preferred stockholder pushed for the company's liquidation. Still, New York-based private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners won't recover its entire investment in American Skiing, company executives said.

Common stockholders will get nothing as American Skiing dissolves and lets corporate employees go, said David Hirasawa, the company's investor-relations director.

"This is not a default-type of arrangement. We are not in bankruptcy. We are paying out to different equity holders in order of seniority," he said.

American Skiing's board, which includes Oak Hill, realized the money it could get from its ski areas when it got a $265 million (EUR 192.29 million) offer on Colorado's Steamboat Springs resort, a smaller but more popular resort than The Canyons, from Canadian resort operator Intrawest Corp.

Steamboat changed hands in March.

"We got exceptionally strong value for that resort," Hirasawa said. "On the heels of that transaction, and because the value was so strong, we were forced to explore some opportunities (to sell) our remaining resorts. The decision was the result of strong market conditions."

In February, American Skiing disclosed it was selling Vermont's Mount Snow and New Hampshire's Attitash ski areas for $73.5 million (EUR 53.33 million). Then, four days later, it announced the sale of Vermont's Killington and Pico resorts for $83.5 million (EUR 60.59 million).