Burke Mountain Resort’s days of being in receivership will soon come to an end. VT Digger reports that Michael Goldberg, the court-appointed receiver who is overseeing Burke, has announced they have received an offer to purchase the ski resort. The bidder and how much they were offered have not been revealed.
In the tenth interim status report from May, Michael Golberg provided the latest developments regarding Burke Mountain Resort:
“The Receiver has received an initial offer, and expects to file a motion with the Court in the next month recommending an identical sales process to the Jay Peak sale – a ‘stalking horse’ bid, followed by an auction and a subsequent motion asking the Court to approve a final sale. The Receiver hopes to conclude the Burke Mountain sale process by the end of 2023, and to subsequently propose a distribution of the sale proceeds to defrauded Burke Mountain EB-5 investors similar to the two Jay Peak distributions.”
The rules with this offer are identical to what Jay Peak went through last year when it was eventually sold to Pacific Group Resorts, Inc. They will wait until they see if anyone else makes a bid, which would lead to an auction.
The whole EB-5 saga is convoluted, so I recommend reading this article from Boston Magazine for more information. To sum it up in a sentence: foreign investments that were meant to fund projects in the Northeast Kingdom, in exchange for U.S. citizenship were misused by Ariel Quiros and his cronies, leading to lawsuits and jail time.
There’s a lot of potential for Burke Mountain. There’s the steep skiing, the mountain biking network that is connected to the world-famous Kingdom Trails, and a hotel that gives the potential to bring people in for longer vacations. In addition, the ski resort has some of the best lift ticket deals of any mountain in the country.
There are some differences, such as lift breakdowns, which have happened frequently lately, and heating issues this past February led to major water leakage at Burke’s hotel. This place has a lot of potential though, so I hope that the new owner is willing to spend money to make Burke one of the best ski resorts in Vermont.
Image Credits: Burke Mountain Resort
