Winter Park officially opened its lifts to the skiing and snowboarding public today “Under New Ownership”, but for all sliders enjoying the start of Winter Park’s 68th season, it was pleasure as usual.

Back on October 17th, 2006, at a special meeting of Intrawest’s shareholders and option holders (Intrawest operate and manage the Winter Park Resort) 99.9% voted to approve an arrangement whereby Intrawest would become a wholly owned subsidiary of a corporation indirectly owned by Fortress Investment Group LLC Funds.

Being of curious disposition, I’m wondering about the 0.1% who didn’t vote in favor of paying themselves a big premium over their purchase price – whatever that was. For one thing, we know it wasn’t Joe Houssian, Intrawest’s founder and chief executive officer who, according to the Vancouver Sun on September 21, 2006, reportedly will reap a $126 million windfall from his shares and options, etc. (more…)