The Last Intrawest Annual Report: One Benefit of Being Bought

 

But I’m a sentimental kind of guy. Just for old time’s sake, I decided to slog through the last one when it came out. And as long as I was being sentimental, I thought I might as well try and figure out exactly why Intrawest decided to sell to Fortress.

 

This all began with a February 28, 2006 press release in which Intrawest announced “…that it had initiated a review of strategic options available to the company for enhancing shareholder value…” Intrawest Chairman Joe Houssian is quoted as saying, “It makes sense for us at this time to evaluate all of the different ways in which we can capitalize on the opportunities in front of us for the benefit of shareholders, and to ensure that we have the bets possible capital structure in place.” Here’s a link to the Intrawest site where you can click through to see the press release: http://www.integratir.com/newsrelease.asp?ticker=IDR

 

Okay, well enhancing shareholder value is a fine thing. Who could argue? But my question was why they thought they had to go through this process to do it. Couldn’t they just run the business themselves? Did they need more capital than they could raise on their own? Were they concerned about softness in the real estate market? Did the diversification of their business (only 32% of revenue now comes from mountain operations) require a different kind of support? The release didn’t say.

 

By way of background, Intrawest went public in June of 1997 at $16.75 a share. The stock bounced around for some years, closing at $18.94 at the end of September, 2004. From there, it moved up smartly, closing at a high of $37.60 the week of May 5, 2006. It then reversed course and went down for eleven of the next thirteen weeks, closing at $26.70 the week ending August 4^th. Then the sale of the company was announced and the stock rocketed up to $34.50 ($35.00 a share is the purchase price) and has stayed near that price since.

 

The June 30, 2006 balance sheet is hardly changed from the previous year and the changes are positive. Total assets are almost identical, while liabilities are down and equity is up.

 

Net income rose from $33 to $115 million. The contributions from resort and travel operations fell 11% to $89 million. Management services contribution fell 14% to $37 million. The real estate contribution, however, more than doubled to $143 million. That component of Intrawest’s income can swing around a lot from year to year. I guess it’s normal for that business, but it makes year to year comparisons a little difficult.

 

I thought a telling section of their Form 40-F was the section called “General Development of the Business. It listed what they consider to be “key developments” during the last three fiscal years. There were thirteen accomplishments listed and every single one of them was raised money, sold this, bought that, refinanced this, retired that debt, started our review of strategic options. No doubt these were key developments, but I thought it was interesting that not a one was focused on running and improving the core business operations. I mean, they must have done some good things in those areas. They’ve been doing them for years. 

 

You read the press releases, scour the documents, and listen to the conference call. You still don’t get a specific and satisfying explanation for why Intrawest sold.

 

But if you go to the web site of the Fortress Investment group (http://www.fortressinv.com/) and spend just a few minutes reading about it, you will learn that they are a large, diversified organization with access to capital and the ability support companies in putting in place financial structures that allow those companies to take maximum advantage of their opportunities. Whatever Intrawest can accomplish on its own, it can do more with the support of Fortress. With the support of Fortress, management’s time won’t have to be focused on refinancing, buying, selling and restructuring. They can worry about running the business.

 

If you read a bit about Fortress, the apparent generalities which Intrawest used to explain the motivations for the transaction make a whole lot more sense.