its snowed. We got the angry inch (or 3 maybe). We are still in jeopardy of having a green and brown x-mas. Which I am told by local weather luminaries would be a first EVER. Not a good first.
Remember the 12.5k lift tickets that Aspen Ski Co sold to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Snowmass. Well the bill comes due on that little bit of marketing genius tomorrow with maybe 100 acres of open terrain on Snowmass. I will be skipping the angry mosh pit tomorrow. To be honest I have skied one day for all of 2 hours.
In other news Woodbridge LLC is under investigation for fraud by the SEC and also hiding behind bankruptcy law to protect themselves. They own a ton of real estate in Aspen (and roaring fork valley) along with Southern CA. Bankrupt? WTF
In other WTF news the Aspen Club project is also having major financial difficulties. They haven't paid their builders in months, construction has halted, and there are liens piling up. Seems they didn't pre sell enough units to satisfy their lender who halted loans and is trying to wipe the equity holders out. But seriously WTF.
Why WTF--well if you didn't notice the price of every asset in the US except for Chicago real estate has been on a tear. How do you lose money and need bankruptcy protection when real estate is exploding. It's like losing money owning bitcoin this year. Not an easy trick to pull of.
Recent news also includes Aspen Ski Co starting a soup kitchen to feed employees most nights. This line came straight from the Aspen Times newspaper ' ski co has started a soup kitchen to feed unemployed workers'. Unemployed workers? Sounds like an oxymoron to me, but it seems SkiCo's seasonal employees working lifts, on mountain restaurants, base retail had to been here to start work under the assumption that the mountains would open. They didn't, so they don't get paid. And yet they can't really do anything else because they have to be ready to work. Oh yea, and most of them are in SkiCo housing so they owe rent to SkiCo while not getting paid to work and having to be ready to start work at a moments notice. Sounds like the old company store in the mining town movies. And then someone like Clint Eastwood (or Karl Marx) appears to get the man of their backs.
What was the SkiCo marketing message this year ---oh yea love (your employees by providing them a soup kitchen), unity (with your employees who you aren't paying), respect (your employees and by requiring them to be on standby and collecting rent checks from them while not paying them) and commit (to way out of the box thinking by bringing back the soup kitchen to feed your unemployed workers).
Mr Kaplan (CEO SKI CO) I know it's tough when the snow doesn't come as planned, but really a poor start to the season shouldn't be that surprising. And while you talk the community talk, and have a really new age marketing message and a lot of righteousness in your op ed pieces on the Wall St Journal, maybe you could figure out something a bit more creative than a soup kitchen to feed your 'unemployed workers'.
No comments:
Post a Comment