Vail Resorts Falls Nearly 13 Percent Friday

EAGLE COUNTY – A Vail Resorts launch of "certain ski season metrics" on Friday may have accelerated the downward trend of the company's stock.

On Friday, Vail Resorts shares fell $ 27.30 per share to $ 187.33 a share, a 12.7 percent loss. The stock peaked at $ 301.42 a share on September 4, 2018. At the close of Friday's trading session, stocks were off 37.8% from the peak.

Also on Friday, Vail Resorts has released data on the ski season so far at its mountain resorts in North America.

These data include:

• Total revenue for cable car tickets in the season at North American mountain resorts, including an allocated portion of seasonal pass revenue for each applicable period, increased 12.2% compared to the same period a year earlier.
• The monthly revenue with the ski school grew 9.5% and the revenue from restaurants grew 14.8% over the same period of the previous year. Retail revenue / resort store rentals in North America increased 12% compared to the same period last year.
• Total visits of skiers of the season to North American mountain resorts increased 16.9% compared to the period of the previous season of the year.

In a statement, Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz said: "It's great to see growth across our company …"

But, the statement added, that the company had lost its own expectations for the weeks leading up to the Christmas holiday period. This resulted in an adjustment in expectations that the company's reported EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) would be "slightly below the lower limit of the guidance range issued on September 28, 2018."

Vail Daily Business Editor Scott Miller can be reached at [email protected] or 970-748-2930.