TL;DR
Vail Resorts has quietly engaged takeover-defence bankers to assess its vulnerabilities, as pressure builds from multiple directions - a rough winter, union tensions, and a persistent billionaire who wants to buy Park City Mountain Resort. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince has gone public with a $500 million offer and says activist investors are calling him. Vail's CEO isn't selling.
Vail Resorts has hired takeover-defence bankers as a billionaire's campaign to buy Park City Mountain Resort turns up the heat.
According to a Semafor report published on 18 June, Vail Resorts is working with mergers and acquisitions advisers to assess its vulnerabilities - from labour disputes and climate exposure to the sustained pressure campaign of Matthew Prince, the Cloudflare CEO and billionaire who has been publicly pushing Vail to sell him Park City Mountain Resort.
No activist investor has yet made a formal move on the company. But the engagement of defence bankers signals that Vail's board is taking the threat seriously enough to prepare.
Who is Matthew Prince and what does he want?
Prince, 50, grew up in Park City and worked as a ski instructor there in the mid-1990s before building Cloudflare into one of the world's largest internet infrastructure companies. He is now the wealthiest person in Utah. His interest in Park City Mountain Resort is not new - he first began pushing for a sale last year - but his public statements have become increasingly pointed.
In an interview with The Colorado Sun in early June, Prince said he is prepared to invest $500 million in Park City, focused on snowmaking, lift upgrades and profit-sharing with employees. He is also the owner of the Park City Town Lift plaza at the base of the resort, which includes the land beneath the Town Lift that connects to Main Street.
