New chief to cut costs at American Skiing Co.

RUTLAND, Vt. – The new chief executive at the nation’s largest ski resort company says his first goals are cutting costs and improving profits, and layoffs and resort closings are a possibility.

“As a public company, obviously we’ll look at any option and we can’t rule anything out,” said William “B.J.” Fair, who was chosen Wednesday to replace American Skiing Co. founder Leslie Otten.

“I think our primary focus is really trying to identify how do we start to improve the overall results of each of our assets [resorts],” said Fair, who joined American Skiing last March as chief operating officer.

Fair, 39, an ex-Disney and Universal Studios executive, faces a tough task in trying to cut down the company’s nearly $400 million in debt.

Before joining ASC, Fair was president of Universal Studios’ Port Adventura theme park. He also served the company as senior vice president of Universal Creative. While at The Disney Co., he was director of finance and business planning for Disney Development Co., where he was chief negotiator for the Disney’s California Adventure expansion.

While the company would not rule out layoffs as part of its cost containment efforts, Fair said he doesn’t envision a “broad structural layoff.”

He said the company was concentrating on reducing its real estate debt through the sale of the existing inventory of time shares.

He said the collapse of the merger with MeriStar last Friday was a disappointment because of the work that went into it. But Fair also said that calling off the deal by both companies was the right way to go.

“In actuality, there was a lot of good work done in the planning for the merger. We identified a lot of key areas again for additional improvements and that’s the exact same approach and path that we’re going to be continuing down as American Skiing Co.,” he said.

The merger with MeriStar Hotels & Resorts also would have brought with it additional access to capital, which now won’t be as readily available. It’s an area that Fair acknowledged will have to be addressed. He said Otten’s departure on the heels of the failed merger won’t have any effect on the company’s operations.

“We’re really not changing what our operating strategy is. For the last 10 months we’ve been working at the management teams at each resort to come up with a strategic plan for each of their resorts and how they’re going to be improving the business of that specific resort,” he said.