Oasis Management Sends Letter to Vail Resorts Shareholders in Connection with the Company's 2026 Annual Meeting
Highlights Prolonged Stock Price Underperformance, Operational Mismanagement and Failed Board Oversight
Outlines Initiatives to Reinvigorate Customer Loyalty, Restore Growth and Deliver Better Outcomes for Guests, Employees and Shareholders
Launches Website to Provide Shareholders with Additional Information
Urges Shareholders to Vote "FOR" Robert Chapek and M. Ashton Hudson on the BLUE Proxy Card
AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Oasis Management Company Ltd. ("Oasis"), the manager of funds that own approximately 9.6% of the outstanding common shares of Vail Resorts, Inc. ("Vail Resorts" or the "Company") (NYSE: MTN), today released a letter to Vail Resorts shareholders in connection with its nomination of Robert Chapek and M. Ashton Hudson for election to the Vail Resorts Board of Directors at the Company's 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders (the "Annual Meeting"), which is scheduled to be held on December 14, 2026. Oasis also launched a website, liftingthevail.oasiscm.com, to provide shareholders with additional information in connection with the Annual Meeting.
"Vail Resorts is an iconic company, with a valuable network of irreplaceable mountain resorts," said Seth H. Fischer, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Oasis. "Despite its competitive advantages, however, Vail Resorts has gone downhill. The Company has been operationally mismanaged, in our view, resulting in a stagnant guest experience, deteriorating operating performance and disappointing returns for shareholders."
Mr. Fischer continued, "It's time to get Vail Resorts back on its edges. 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. We encourage shareholders to support this much-needed change by voting for our highly qualified, independent nominees, Robert Chapek and M. Ashton Hudson. With your help, Lifting the Vail is possible."
The full text of the letter is below and available to view online on our website.
Dear Fellow Vail Resorts Shareholders:
The Oasis Group[1] owns approximately 9.6% of Vail Resorts stock, worth more than half a billion dollars.[2] Like you, we are enthusiastic owners of this iconic company because we believe it is one of the leading hospitality businesses in the world, with a valuable network of irreplaceable mountain resorts, a robust competitive position and a highly attractive customer base.
Despite these advantages, the Company's stock price is down more than 50% over the last five years, erasing more than $8 billion of market value.[3] In fact, before media reports of our engagement with the Company, Vail Resorts' total shareholder return had significantly underperformed the median of the Company's self-selected peers and the Dow Jones U.S. Travel & Leisure Index over each of the last one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten years![4]
This persistent underperformance has coincided with multi-year declines in North American skier visits, pass unit sales and Resort Reported EBITDA margins, along with frequent guidance cuts, which we believe have damaged the credibility of management and the Board. In each of the last three fiscal years, the Company lowered its earnings guidance twice and ultimately missed the midpoint of its initial guidance by approximately 10% on average.[5]
The Company's CEO, who has served on the Board for 30 years and has led the Company as CEO or Executive Chairperson for 20 years, is asking shareholders for patience. In the Company's proxy statement, Mr. Katz writes that the Company is at "just the beginning" of its "new strategy"[6] and the Board claims that recent initiatives "are only just starting to demonstrate their potential."[7] Shareholders have heard similar promises before, and many earlier strategic initiatives implemented with the Board's approval have failed to deliver sustainable earnings growth or shareholder value.[8]
The Company's problems are not new, even if Mr. Katz's "focus" on solutions is. Vail Resorts' North American customer base has been shrinking for three consecutive fiscal years.[9] During the 2024-2025 season, when industrywide skier visits rose 3%, visits to the Company's resorts fell 3%.[10] During the 2025-2026 season, the Company's North American skier visits fell by 15%, underperforming the industry decline of 10%.[11]
Despite the Board's proclamations of a turnaround,[12] unit sales of the Company's pass products have declined approximately 12% for the upcoming 2026-2027 season, an acceleration from two consecutive seasons of approximately 3% year-over-year declines.[13] And Wall Street analysts who closely follow Vail Resorts have assessed the Company's strategy and seemingly do not share the Board's view that "progress"[14] is underway, having reduced their EBITDA estimates for both fiscal 2027 and 2028 by an average of 11% and 13%, respectively, over the last 12 months.[15]
Vail Resorts Has Gone Downhill
With so many competitive advantages, why has the Company performed so poorly for shareholders?
- The Guest Experience Has Stagnated. The guest experience has suffered as a result of long lift lines,[16] overcrowding[17] and escalating food prices,[18] 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.[19] 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,[20] 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%.[21] Yet, the Company has not realized the operating leverage and efficiencies that should accompany such a significant increase in scale. Resort Reported EBITDA margins have declined for four consecutive years, reaching their lowest level since fiscal 2014 (excluding the pandemic-impacted fiscal 2020).[22] Moreover, despite an approximately 45% increase in effective ticket prices since fiscal 2016, Resort Reported EBITDA per skier visit has increased by only 8%.[23]
- 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 and 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."[24] And, over the past two-and-a-half years, the Board has added just one new directorÂÂÂâwhich 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.[25]
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. Under the current Board-approved plan, management is forecasting fiscal 2027 Resort Reported EBITDA that, at the midpoint of the guidance range, is essentially unchanged from what the Company earned five years ago in fiscal 2022, with a profit margin that is more than 600 basis points below the fiscal 2022 margin.[26]
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; and
- 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."[27] Yet according to the Company's own proxy statement, Mr.