By Phil Pennington of RNZ
A private buyer is finalising a bid to run the Whakapapa skifield on Mount Ruapehu from next winter.
Whakapapa Holdings (WHL) is two weeks into preparing an application with the Department of Conservation (Doc) to get the central North Island skifield concession. It received three assessments, including an environmental one, just this week.
The company - founded by Dave Mazey, the former head of Ruapehu Alpine Lifts - is working on applying with Calibre Partners, who are the receivers and agents of the Crown.
Calibre said negotiations with WHL were ongoing and this was not a "done deal, with any transaction requiring a concession to be granted and other approvals as required".
Mazey told RNZ he wanted to talk to the Tūroa ski field about a lift pass that would allow a skier to use both fields, even though they would be separately owned, unlike before.
"We would absolutely like to have a lift mix available that allows people to choose, whether they want to ski Whakapapa or Tūroa."
He said he was confident the department would approve a 10-year concession to settle in April 2025 in time to open for next season.
"We think we can contribute to the good side" for a region hit by job losses, he said, adding he had told mayor Weston Kirton about it.
Doc would take several months to assess the application in a process open to submitters to make a call, Mazey said.
"We haven't quite got it yet."
Pure Tūroa won a 10-year concession in April to run the Tūroa field next door. Mazey said he had been waiting to see how that was structured.
Calibre said while a deal was not done yet, it had agreed with WHL to commence an application for the concession.
"These are the same steps that Pure Tūroa went through in its acquisition of Tūroa Ski Area earlier in the year," it said.
Ten years was well short of the 15-20 years a field needed to make money back off new lifts, Mazey said. The company would also go in with a $14 million debt primarily related to iwi interests, secured on the Sky Waka gondola.
But it was also aiming to invest primarily in snow management equipment, such as snowmakers, which were mobile and had a short return on investment.
"It's not expected in their [Calibre's] forecasts to be a highly profitable company. But ... we believe it's cashflow positive."
WHL accepted the licence had to be short term, until the various iwi groups had settled on how the Tongariro area would be managed long-term.
Mazey said iwi had been engaged with throughout the process.
Calibre has been running Whakapapa this season, which is expected to wrap up soon.
