Vail Resorts' fiscal 2026 results, released Sept. 28, reveal a stark downturn in its core pass business: pass product units sold for the coming North American season fell about 12% through Sept. 18, with pass sales dollars down about 6%. Skier visits for the fiscal year dropped 13.4% to 15.3 million, and net income attributable to the company fell to $147.5 million from $280 million a year earlier. The results arrive as Oasis Management, a Hong Kong hedge fund, has launched a proxy contest, nominated four director candidates, and raised its stake to 7.4%, according to regulatory filings and local press coverage.
For Daniel Kaufman, founder of the permanent capital holding company Kaufman & Company and an investor in mountain resort and workforce housing development, the numbers point to a deeper structural problem: the ski industry's growth story has moved from selling more passes to keeping mountain towns livable for the workers who operate them.
"A pass is a promise that the mountain will be open, staffed and worth the drive," Kaufman said. "You can argue about weather and pricing all day, but the thing no corporate office can fix from a distance is whether the lift operator, the patroller and the line cook can afford to live near the base. That is where the value of a resort actually sits, and it does not show up in the pass count until it is too late."
Local coverage of the proxy contest in Park City has raised the possibility that individual resorts could eventually change hands. Kaufman said any owner, current or future, should underwrite housing before lifts or lodges. "If mountains start moving from one owner to another, the buyers who do well will be the ones who treat employee housing as part of the lift system, not as an amenity," he said. "We look at mountain towns the way we look at any housing market, by the data: supply, wages, and how far a worker drives to the job. A resort that gets those right does not need a record-breaking year to make money."
Kaufman & Company invests only its own capital and does not raise outside funds. Its operating company DEK Builds, headquartered in Cheyenne, Wyoming, is an integrated design, build, development, and investment firm working across custom homes, mountain resorts, hotels, and commercial construction. LandBriefing, a land and housing data platform built by Kaufman Real Estate & Consulting, recently added Mountain Watch, which tracks land and housing fundamentals in mountain resort and gateway towns. Oldivai, an aligned and independently led partner, develops workforce housing.
The implications extend beyond Vail. As resort operators face rising operational costs and labor shortages, the ability to house employees near the mountain is becoming a competitive differentiator. Kaufman's platform represents more than $2 billion in project value and more than 10,000 housing units across more than 25 years of building, lending, and investing. For an industry grappling with climate variability, shifting consumer demand, and activist investors, the message is clear: the future of skiing may depend less on snowfall and more on whether the people who run the lifts can afford to live where they work.
