I try not to do business while on vacation, but couldn’t restrain myself from a little light investigation of who owns Stowe Ski Resort, while on a family vacation there last week. First I asked a ski instructor, while sharing a chair lift up Spruce Mountain, and was told that it was owned by the U.S. government. And that there was a stretch of time in 2009 when the U.S. was approving all of the expenditures, following the record $183 billion government bailout of AIG .  “So maybe that is why they are not doing more snow making I thought”, as I avoided the icy sections on my next downhill run, “it’s because of the federal budget crisis!”

Later, I checked with the owner of the Golden Eagle Motel (a Stowe resort property) who told me that Stowe resort had been owned by AIG, and now was owned by Chartis, an AIG subsidiary.  A little further research back home confirmed that AIG’s connection with Stowe started in 1946, when AIG founder C.V. Starr invested in the resort, that AIG has been 100% owners of Stowe since 1988, and that they did indeed transfer ownership to their 100% owned subsidiary Chartis, in late 2009.   Financial terms of the transfer were not disclosed, but in addition to the Stowe ski resort, with its 119 trails over two mountains, it included two 18-hole golf courses, and an upscale lodge.

Stowe, Vermont is a very special place – quintessential New England –  and based on what I saw and read, the Stowe ski resort is perhaps the finest on the East Coast.  Stowe’s new Spruce Mountain Lodge is breathtaking, and the gondola across route 108, connecting the two ski mountains is incredibly convenient.   Skiing is obviously part of AIG’s DNA, but it is not remotely part of its corporate mission,  which raises the question in my mind about what kind of payback AIG shareholders are getting on AIG’s $300 million, 10-year capital program to expand and upgrade Stowe.