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Vail Resorts owns and operates dozens of mountain resorts globally.
Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
Vail Resorts
crushed earnings expectations and raised its full-year outlook Thursday evening, which was enough to send shares higher in Friday trading on a brutal day for the broader market.
Vail stock (ticker: MTN) rose 1.1% to $248.26 in Friday trading while the
S&P 500
index was fell 2.3%. The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
had fallen more than 670 points, or 2.1%, following a higher-than-expected inflation reading.
The company, which owns and operates dozens of mountain resorts globally, reported earnings of $9.16 a share while sales jumped 33% to $1.18 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet had forecast earnings of $9.06 a share and sales of $1.16 billion.
Vail also raised its fiscal 2022 outlook for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, to be between $823 million and $842 million, which is up from a prior range of between $813 million and $837 million. Credit Suisse analyst Benjamin Chaiken noted that a few months ago, Wall Street expected the company to cut, not raise its outlook.
Season pass sales for the 2022-23 season have been going well, too. The firm says it has sold 9% more season passes through May 31 than a year ago, and netted 11% more in sales dollars compared with the prior year through June 1, 2021.
Chaiken, who has an Outperform rating and $383 price target on Vail shares, views the pass sales as a positive sign. He thinks the company has done a great job bringing back last year’s passholders at the same rate as last year, given the firm cut pass prices by 20% last year.
JPMorgan analyst Omer Sander raised his price target to $280 from $279 and maintained a Neutral rating after the earnings report. He wrote in a note Thursday evening that improving results at its Whistler, Colorado, and Utah resorts offset a softer performance from its resorts in the Lake Tahoe region.
“[Vail] has seen high appeal for its Epic Day Pass, which supports the advance commitment model, though drives some downward pressure on overall price,” Sander wrote. “The pass units update is a surprise to the upside, while the [dollar] sales update is more subdued given the 7.5% price increase. Long-term, [Vail] expects to upgrade these day pass buyers into Epic Passes.”
Write to Connor Smith at [email protected]
