Denver, CO – Denver-based Intrawest, which operates a number of ski resorts in the U.S. and Canada including Winter Park and Steamboat in Colorado, Stratton Mountain in Vermont, Quebec’s Mont Tremblant and Snowshoe, W.V., as well as heli-skiing operator Canadian Mountain Holidays, today filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a $100 million initial public offering (IPO).
The company, which was founded in 1976, booked $524 million in sales for the 12 months ended June 30, 2013. Intrawest plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange but has yet to announce a ticker symbol.
Intrawest, which was public until its 2006 purchase by Fortress Investment Group of New York for $2.8 billion, was at one time one of the world’s largest ski resort holding companies. The company fell on hard times following the real estate collapse in 2007, and divested itself of a number of properties, including Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia, the continent’s largest ski resort, which Intrawest sold in November 2010. The company relocated from Vancouver, Canada, to Denver in 2011.
“Prior to the collapse in housing markets in late 2007 and the global financial crisis that followed, we were actively engaged in large scale development and sales of resort real estate, primarily in North America. In light of the then prevailing market conditions, we ceased new development activities in late 2009. As a result, we were left with a portfolio of legacy real estate assets, high leverage levels and litigation initiated by purchasers of resort real estate seeking to rescind their purchase obligations or otherwise mitigate their losses,” the company explains in its SEC filing. “Through a series of debt refinancings, cost saving initiatives and divestitures of non-core assets, we believe we have streamlined our operations. As of September 30, 2013, we have divested substantially all of our legacy real estate assets and have settled the majority of litigation claims stemming from our pre-2010 development and sales activities. Although the effects of our pre-2010 legacy real estate development and sales activities on our consolidated financial results will continue in future periods, we expect that these effects will continue to diminish over time. ”
According to the SEC filing William Jensen, who has served as Intrawest’s CEO since 2008, will remain at the helm of the company following the IPO.