Who says you can’t make money in snow resorts? Montana’s Big Sky Resort has just been set up for a sale totaling $74 million between Boyne Resorts and CNL Lifestyle Properties.
The agreement is the result of a loan from CNL to Brighton for $68 million. When the loan matures in Sept. 2010, CNL will take ownership for Big Sky for $74 million. As part of the agreement, Boyne will need to make improvements to Big Sky to the tune of around $5 million.
Don’t worry — if you are a fan of how Boyne does business, the company is expected to continue running Big Sky under a long-term lease. You see, CNL is not in the business of running resorts (be they snow/ski/golf/etc.), they simply buy them and usually let the original owner run them (but CNL still gets the overall profits).
In fact, the company already has similar arrangements with six of Boyne’s other resorts, including Crystal Mountain in Washington, Sugarloaf in Main and Brighton in Utah. It also owns Mountain High in Calif. and Northstar and Sierra in Lake Tahoe.
Must be nice to be a billion-dollar company with money to spare.
