Vail Resorts CEO On The Company's Impressive Second-Quarter Results

Vail Resorts, Inc.

opened strong on Thursday on back of the company posting exceptional second-quarter earnings and increasing its dividend. Revenues of the company increased 17 percent year over year to $530.2 million, while the EPS came at $3.10, significantly above $1.60 that the company declared for the same quarter last year. Rob Katz, Vail Resorts CEO, post the declaration to break down the quarterly numbers. "We feel very good about the quarter obviously we had some challenging weather in Tahoe, but our resorts in Colorado and Utah have been incredibly strong," Katz said. "Really the benefit of our Season Pass program, all of our marketing efforts and the company is really in a very strong [cash] position, which I think [puts us] very well as we look forward." Strong Dollar Not That Critical "We have had incredible strength across the board," Katz said. "Obviously from the U.S. market which is doing incredibly well and even with some of the currency shifts we are seeing with the U.S. dollar [abroad] even those things, right? We think we are over performing that. Lot of our traveler have investments in U.S. dollars and they are at a wealth level where the currency shifts are not that critical." Acquisitions On acquisition plans, Katz said, "I think, we have been looking abroad, we have been public about that for a couple of years, certainly the currency helps that, but obviously the U.S. market is also incredibly strong right now and so while the dollar is strong that also helps us because that's the primary market we sell to."