Central Pa.-based Roundtop owner selling company after 54 years in business
In this photo from December, snow blows in the background as skiers and snowboarders move toward the lifts at Roundtop Mountain Resort. (York Daily Record file)
Snow Time Inc., the York County-based owner of Roundtop Mountain Resort and two other ski resorts, is selling to a Missouri company after more than 50 years in business.
Irvin Naylor, who founded Snow Time and started Ski Roundtop in 1964, is retiring, according to the company.
Peak Resorts, based in Wildwood, Mo., will acquire Snow Time for $76 million. The sale includes Roundtop, Whitetail Resort and Liberty Mountain Resort. Peak Resorts owns 14 other ski resorts in the Midwest and Northeast.
Snow Time generated about $50 million in revenue and earnings of about $11 million in the most recent fiscal year.
“The transformative acquisition of Snow Time offers a rare opportunity for Peak Resorts to dramatically grow our company by expanding the number of destinations for our Peak Pass holders in the Northeast while growing our presence in the very attractive and densely populated markets of Baltimore and Washington, D.C.,” said Timothy D. Boyd, president and CEO of Peak Resorts.
“Over the course of more than 50 years, Irvin Naylor and his team have established three exceptionally well-cared-for mountain resorts across the southern tier of Pennsylvania and we are delighted to welcome these wonderful facilities and the Snow Time team to the Peak Resorts family.”
Snow Time said Monday that, since Naylor is retiring, he and his family decided to transfer the ownership of the local resorts to a company that can continue their healthy growth and operation.
Peak Resorts are the “perfect operators to take Liberty, Roundup and Whitetail to the next level,” Naylor said. He has watched the formerly family-owned Hunter Mountain in New York progress under Peak’s ownership.
The current staff, management teams and local resort offerings all will remain the same, according to Snow Time.
Don MacAskill, president of Whitetail Resort, said he expects it to be business as usual at the Mercersburg resort with no significant changes. Peak Resorts is publicly traded, but led by five members of the Boyd family.
The Snow Time sale, tentatively set before the end of November, will not impact Whitetail’s effort to get voters to approve the sale of alcoholic beverages at the golf and ski resorts on Blairs Valley Road, according to MacAskill.
“This in no way will impact the referendum,” MacAskill said on Monday. “This is as important today as it was yesterday.”
If voters on Nov. 6 okay the sale of alcoholic beverages at the Whitetail Golf Resort and at generic ski resorts in dry Montgomery Township, then the Whitetail owner could apply to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board for the two licenses. The LCB would review the applications.
Boyd said he expects that “the addition of these turn-key resorts to our portfolio ahead of the 2018/2019 ski season will result in immediate financial benefits for Peak Resorts.”
Pass holders who already purchased or renewed their season passes for the 2018-19 ski season at Liberty, Roundtop and Whitetail can upgrade to the Peak Pass for all of Peak’s Northeast resorts.
Peak has resorts in Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania and the Midwest.
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