Reno’s Mt. Rose to remain family-owned

Take down the “for sale” sign, the Buser family will retain control of Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe.

On Tuesday, the Reno-based ski area announced plans for a sale are off the table, a relief to skiers and snowboarders who worried Mt. Rose would be gobbled up by a large conglomerate.

Owner Fritz Buser, 97, who lives in Switzerland, has owned the resort since 1971. After testing the open market, Buser transferred control to his children and grandchildren. Kurt Buser, executive president of the company for 20 years, will remain in that position.

Paul Smeft, general manager since 1992, will also retain his position, according to the statement.

“The bottom line is they didn’t get the offers they were hoping for,” said Mike Pierce, marketing director for Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe. “After recalculating, they decided to keep it.”

Pierce wouldn’t say how much the family had hoped for in a sale, but he said it was more than $50 million.

“All I know is what they were asking, none of the offers came close,” he said.

Tim Cohee, Ski Business and Resort Management Program director at Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village, said the owners were asking far more than the market would bear.

“The people I talked to … no one could come anywhere near justifying the price they were asking,” Cohee said.

Cohee said a ski area like Mt. Rose should fetch about six times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

Mt. Rose officials don’t disclose their finances publicly, but a “Mt. Rose in Numbers” summary that circulated when the property was for sale would value the property around $24 to $36 million under the six-time multiplier.

The stat sheet, which included numbers through the 2015-16 season, said the ski area has about 14,000 season-pass holders and at the time had a record-breaking 283,000 total annual visitation.

“It is a good ski area and it has a great ski market,” Cohee said.

The ski area’s attributes include a location that’s just 22 miles from the Reno-Tahoe International Airport and a base elevation of 8,260 feet, the highest in the Lake Tahoe region. The elevation, northern exposure and extensive snowmaking enable the operators to open early and hold snow when competitors struggle to maintain coverage.

It’s also got private property zoned to allow as many as 395 development units, Pierce said.

“Right now, that is not in the immediate future,” Pierce said.

He said the focus will remain on improving components visitors notice, such as the lodge, lifts, snowmaking and terrain.

“It is a great mountain, it is a good investment for anybody, I’m glad to see the Busers hang onto it,” Pierce said.

Fritz Buser’s connection to the resort dates back to the 1960s when he was a salesman Henke Boots, a ski boot company that was among the first to offer buckles instead of laces.

Early developers of Mt. Rose as a ski area were continually seeking investment and Buser was willing to provide it in exchange for stock.

By 1971 he was a majority owner. In 1987 Buser’s Mt. Rose merged with the Slide Mountain ski area resulting in the current configuration.

In 2009 the ski area added the Winters Lodge to the Slide side and last season it enjoyed its snowiest season ever, measuring more than 56 feet of snow.