Major Vail Resorts Share Owner Sharply Criticises in Public How the Company Is Currently Run

2nd November 2026

Oasis Management Company Ltd Owns 9.6% of the shares in the company, worth half a billion dollars. It says Vail Resorts is ‘Going Downhill’ as it tries to get supporters on the board of the company. NEW

Vail Resorts is the major resort owner in North America and amoung others runs Vail, Park City, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge in the USA & Whistler in Canada.

It owns the lift company in Crans-Montana & Andermatt in Switzerland and is actively seeking to run more resorts in the Alps.

Its Epic Pass is connected to Verbier, Les3Vallees and other major resorts in Europe and around the world.

In a scathing attack Oasis says “The company has been operationally mismanaged resulting in a stagnant guest experience, deteriorating operating performance and disappointing returns for shareholders.”

It has launched a website to provide shareholders with its view ahead of the upcoming Annual Meeting of Stockholders:

Liftingthevail.oasiscm.com

Breckenridge (owned by Vail Resorts). Image © PlanetSKI

Breckenridge. Image © PlanetSKI

“It’s time to get Vail Resorts back on its edges,” said the founder and chief investment officer of Oasis, Seth H. Fischer.

“We have identified concrete initiatives that we believe can help reinvigorate customer loyalty, restore growth and deliver better outcomes for guests, employees and shareholders.

“Our goal is to make Vail Resorts better, not break it up.”

It comes ahead of the nomination of Robert Chapek and M. Ashton Hudson for election to the Vail Resorts Board of Directors.

It has launched a website to provide shareholders with its view ahead of the upcoming Annual Meeting of Stockholders:

Liftingthevail.oasiscm.com

It claims:

The Guest Experience Has Stagnated

The guest experience has suffered as a result of long lift lines, overcrowding and escalating food prices, with too few options and experiences offered for both value-conscious and premium customers.

Today, just one Vail Resorts property ranks among the top ten ski resorts in the Eastern or Western United States in SKI Magazine’s annual reader survey.

Vail Resorts’ inattention to the guest experience was brought into sharp focus during the 2024-2025 holiday season ski patrol strike at Park City Mountain, which arose from a dispute over a $2 increase in the hourly base wage, among other requests,and which left guests facing closed terrain and long lines during the critical holiday period.

Operating Performance Has Deteriorated

Since fiscal 2016, the Company has more than tripled the size of its resort portfolio, expanding from 12 to 42 properties, while increasing resort net revenue by 79%.

Yet, the Company has not realized the operating leverage and efficiencies that should accompany such a significant increase in scale.

The Board Has Failed to Provide Oversight and Accountability

The Board has, in our view, failed in its most fundamental responsibilities:

Selecting the Company’s executive team
Overseeing strategy and execution
Appropriately aligning executive compensation with shareholder value
Ensuring that the Board itself has the experience the Company needs

As noted, Mr. Katz has led the Company as either CEO or Executive Chairperson for more than 20 years, including throughout the last five years during which execution has faltered and the guest experience has deteriorated.

The long-term incentive plan has no performance-based criteria, and the Board touts that the compensation structure will “deliver some value even during periods of market or stock price underperformance.”

And, over the past two-and-a-half years, the Board has added just one new director—which came more than a year after we first raised the topic of Board refreshment with the Company in July 2025, and only after our engagement became public.

The problem is not with the assets the Company owns, in our view, but with how the Company has mismanaged those assets.

Unfortunately, this Board appears content with continued stagnation and underperformance.

Lifting the Vail

The Company needs to think bigger, move faster and execute better.

In short, it is time to get Vail Resorts back on its edges.

Our plan is about making the Company better, not breaking it up.

We have identified concrete initiatives that we believe can help reinvigorate customer loyalty, restore growth and deliver better outcomes for guests, employees and shareholders, including:

Introducing new and expanded pass and ticket offerings and customer experiences that raise the ceiling and lower the floor on price and access
Improving food and beverage quality, variety and value at every price point
Expanding year-round use of the Company’s mountain assets
Modernizing the Company’s marketing strategy to deepen connections with locals and core customers while appealing to new and less frequent guests
Developing a more compelling loyalty program to strengthen customer engagement and encourage repeat visits
Upgrading technology to enhance the customer experience and improve operational efficiency

Through these initiatives, we see a credible path to meaningful profit margin expansion, renewed earnings growth and a re-rating of the Company’s valuation multiple, which we believe would create substantial shareholder value.

We have sought to work constructively with management and the Board to institute what we regard as critical improvements to the Company’s operations and strategy.

The Company now claims that we “have yet to offer a credible plan to improve shareholder returns.”

Yet according to the Company’s own proxy statement, Mr. Katz acknowledged that “almost every action the Company took in the last year was fully aligned with the feedback” we provided in July 2025.

We welcome any effort to make Vail Resorts a better company, but its recent initiatives have been too little, too late and, to date, largely ineffective.

Mr. Katz himself admits that the Company’s recent performance has “not met [his] expectations or the full potential of [the] business.”

We agree.

The Oasis Nominees Are Well Positioned to Drive Change

We believe shareholders should expect more candor and ambition from their fiduciaries and better performance from a company with Vail Resorts’ extraordinary assets and competitive advantages.

Realizing the Company’s full potential will require new directors with a mandate to challenge management, demand better performance and oversee the execution of a more ambitious plan.

For that role, we have nominated two candidates, each of whom is independent of Oasis and well positioned to help address the Company’s operational and governance failures.

Vail Resorts is yet to respond in detail to the accusations and claims from Oasis Management Company Ltd.

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