Mad River to Delay Opening

Today, Mad River Glen delayed it’s planned opening until “after the weekend”, or during the Christmas week.

Bad Weather Forecast for Central Vermont

It’s looking like the weather outlook for the Christmas Holiday is not promising, with rain expected on the Saturday before Christmas. Mad River Glen is planning to open the mountain on Friday, December 22nd in advance of the all-important, make-or-break Christmas week.

Mad River Glen Pulls Rabbit from Hat — Restates Losses Again

As recently as October, Mad River’s losses from last season were estimated by management to be $280,000. Through some creative accounting (allocating 2006 expenses to FY 2007), the newly restated loss for the financials is $173,000.

The Board Meeting minutes were released earlier this week. In addition to the disclosed roll-forward of expenses, the meeting noted how that pre-season pass sales were significantly less than expected, by $100,000. That means the ‘06-07 season starts out with approximately $200,000 of unbudgeted expenses.

The Mad River Board voted not to redeem shares which have been tendered for redemption. According to minutes from the meeting, it is expected that shares will be considered to be redeemed in January.

According to published reports, the board has been recommended to raise the cost of a Mad River Share to $2,500. Meetings will be held over the next few months to discuss the timing of the share price increase. The MRG Board also discussed lowering the price at which shares could be redeemed to $1,200.

The head of the Single Chairlift Campaign Committe commented that less than 50% of MRG Board members have contributed to the Capital Campaign to finance the replacement of the Single Chairlift. The Board is considering, as was mentioned here earlier, that they would pass a special assessment on all outstanding shareholders as a funding source for last resort.