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Tag Archives: Mountain
2023/24 Epic Passes On Sale Now, Offering Skiers and Riders the Best Value to Vail, Whistler Blackcomb, Breckenridge, Park City Mountain and More | Vail Resorts, Inc. – Investor Relations | Vail Resorts, Inc.
- 2023/24 Epic Passes On Sale Now, Offering Skiers and Riders the Best Value to Vail, Whistler Blackcomb, Breckenridge, Park City Mountain and More | Vail Resorts, Inc. Investor Relations | Vail Resorts, Inc.
- Vail Resorts announces new Epic Pass prices for 2023-24 ski season Out There Colorado
- Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass pass jumps $68 to $909 Vail Daily
- Epic Pass prices increase, early bird on sale now for 2023-24 season The Denver Post
- Vail Resorts Launches 2023-24 Epic Passes, Confirms Shift to Mobile Pass The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast
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Rescue, recovery efforts continue for stranded mountain communities in San Bernardino County – KTLA Los Angeles
- Rescue, recovery efforts continue for stranded mountain communities in San Bernardino County KTLA Los Angeles
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- California declares state of emergency in 13 counties after brutal winter storm traps residents CNN
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- ‘Plow the roads,’ mountain residents say, as San Bernardino County vows to do better OCRegister
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Rescuers find lost hiker on California mountain where Julian Sands is missing | California
Rescue personnel in California have found a 75-year-old hiker who was lost on the same snow-covered mountain where actor Julian Sands is missing.
NBC LA captured images of Jin Chung, of North Hollywood, being loaded into an ambulance Tuesday afternoon. He had a leg injury and some weather-related injuries but was able to walk with assistance and was taken to a hospital, the San Bernardino county sheriff’s department said. His condition was not immediately known.
The sheriff’s department launched the search after Chung didn’t return from a hike Sunday on the 10,064ft (3,068-meter) Mount Baldy.
Chung carpooled to the mountain with two others and made plans to meet them at the vehicle at 2pm, but Chung did not return, authorities said.
The sheriff’s department said rescuers unsuccessfully continued searching for Sands on Mount Baldy over the weekend.
“Helicopters and drones continued to use infrared devices during the search however, all were negative for any signs of Sands,” the department’s statement said.
Sands, 65, was reported missing 13 January while hiking. Search and rescue crews began looking for him on the highest peak in the San Gabriel Mountains, about 40 miles (64km) north-east of downtown Los Angeles.
“No evidence of his current location has been discovered. The search will continue, weather and ground conditions permitting,” a sheriff’s department statement said.
Storms have coated the mountain with heavy snow and ice and searches have been thwarted by the threat of avalanches and foul weather, including powerful winds.
Authorities describe mountain conditions as extremely dangerous. Two hikers have died in recent weeks. One fell at least 500ft down an icy slope.
Sands starred opposite Helena Bonham Carter in the 1985 British romance from director James Ivory, A Room With a View.
He also had major roles in in 1989’s Warlock, 1990’s Arachnophobia, 1991’s Naked Lunch, 1993’s Boxing Helena and Leaving Las Vegas in 1995.
Sands has worked consistently in the decades since with smaller roles in film and television.
Splash Mountain is gone. These 7 other Disney closures still sting.
Officially shutting down the popular ride was the latest move in a long-simmering controversy that became a touch point in the culture war over the “woke” direction of the Walt Disney Co. — and the latest Disney attraction fans can wistfully categorize as “gone but not forgotten.”
The log flume attraction, which opened in 1992 in Florida, is based on “Song of the South,” a 1946 film set in post-Civil War Georgia that has been under fire since its release. Disney CEO Bob Iger said in 2020 the movie would never appear on the company’s streaming platform, noting that he had long felt that it “was just not appropriate in today’s world.”
Splash Mountain will become Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, based on the animated film “The Princess and the Frog,” which featured the company’s first Black princess. Disney announced the change in the summer of 2020 as the country faced a larger racial reckoning.
Disneyland’s version of Splash Mountain, which opened in California in 1989, has not yet closed, but it will undergo the same transformation. Both updated versions are scheduled to reopen in late 2024.
Some fans tried to mount a “Save Splash Mountain” campaign, even urging opponents of the switch to enlist the help of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). Others acknowledged they would miss a classic but were looking forward to a new chapter for the ride. Still others argued that it was past time for the original to go, given its source material.
While closing Splash Mountain was more controversial than most Disney changes, other closures and re-imaginings have also caused consternation. Some rides have been torn down to make room for new attractions. Others have been renovated with new storylines, designs and characters. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will still be a log flume ride, following preparations for a Mardi Gras celebration.
“When you’re in charge of Disney, you have to make decisions where you know nobody’s going to be totally happy,” said David Mumpower, who has written three books about Disney rides and attractions. “It’s an impossible challenge because you have to think about the past and show reverence to it. You [also] have to think, ‘What would somebody born today want to do?’”
These seven retired rides and attractions still make many fans nostalgic — or heated.
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When it opened in 1989 with Disney-MGM Studios — the park that is now known as Disney’s Hollywood Studios — this ride took visitors through scenes from famous films, from “Alien” to “Casablanca” to “Singin’ in the Rain,” according to official Disney fan club D23. A live-action twist featured a tour guide and hijacking of the ride vehicle by a gangster or bandit character. It closed in 2017 and reopened in early 2020 as Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, which carries riders through a cartoon world.
Quincy Stanford, a project manager at Disney news and tips site AllEars.net, said the Great Movie Ride is one of the main attractions that the site’s readers miss.
“Great Movie Ride is one of those that did create this cult following,” she said. “They loved riding it; it was a different riding experience every time because it had the live actor element.”
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At Walt Disney World, Epcot’s World Showcase highlights countries around the world. Norway’s offering featured this boat ride showcasing the country’s seafaring history, with a heavy emphasis on adventure. There were also trolls, an exciting backward plunge and a scenic fishing village.
“There’s nothing else like it; there never was,” said Mumpower, who has also written about closed Disney rides for the Disney guide MickeyBlog. “It was like a really weird ride that didn’t fit with anything else at Epcot, but it fit perfectly with the Norway pavilion.”
After opening in 1988, the ride closed in 2014. Its replacement, Frozen Ever After, opened in 2016 using the same track.
“I’m still salty about Maelstrom — and I think Frozen Ever After is amazing,” Mumpower said.
Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
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A stormy night, a rickety elevator and a “Twilight Zone” theme provide a lead-up to a thrilling 13-story drop in this fan favorite.
The original ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida, which opened in 1994, remains unchanged, but the version that opened in 2004 at Disney California Adventure closed in 2016. It reopened the next year as Guardians of the Galaxy — Mission: Breakout!
“That’s one of the ones that had a massive uproar, a major reluctance to be changed when it was announced,” Stanford said. But she said fan reaction since it reopened has been positive, especially since it fits into an Avengers Campus land that opened in 2021: “People rode it, and a lot of people like it better. There’s certainly a contingent of people who prefer the original Tower of Terror.”
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This overhead transportation system connected Tomorrowland and Fantasyland at both Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. At Disneyland, the gondola system opened in 1956 and closed in 1994. The Magic Kingdom version opened in 1971 and closed in 1999.
“For the very small me, that was like the greatest thing about Disney, was they had things in the sky that could take you from place to place,” Mumpower said. “Seriously, to this day, I kind of look up in the sky sometimes and look for the gondolas.”
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The first version of the ride, based on the 1949 film “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad,” opened at Disneyland in 1955 and remains in place. But at Magic Kingdom in Florida, the ride featuring two separate tracks opened with the park in 1971 and closed in 1998. It was replaced with the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
An unusually dark experience, Mr. Toad included a train collision and journey to hell. Still, Stanford said, readers often say they miss it.
“For the people who went to Magic Kingdom between the ’80s and the ’90s … that ride’s their nostalgia,” she said. “Get the Winnie the Pooh out of here. I want to go to hell.”
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The Disneyland ride operated for nearly 30 years, from 1967 until 1995. It traveled inside several attractions in Tomorrowland, a future-and-space-themed part of the park.
“Although the PeopleMover was Walt Disney’s response to an outdated Tomorrowland, it eventually came to be considered too tame over time,” the Walt Disney Family Museum says on its website.
The PeopleMover was replaced by the high-speed Rocket Rods, which opened in 1998, but the replacement closed in 2000 — a swap Mumpower describes as a “fiasco.”
“What they chose to do there makes it worse,” he said. “If you chose to replace something, the next thing better be awesome.”
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This ride has gone through several iterations, but fans miss the version that opened in 1983 featuring a red-haired host called Dreamfinder with a purple dragon named Figment.
A new ride called Journey Into Your Imagination came along in 1999, and the ride changed again to become Journey Into Imagination With Figment in 2002.
But Stanford said the original is “a massive one that people still talk about” when it comes to rides that have been changed.
“They’re just like, ‘Give us the original ride,’” she said. “‘Why did you change it in the first place?’”
Picture exclusive: Last pictures Julian Sands sent to his grandson from a snow-clad mountain peak
The family of missing movie star Julian Sands say he was doing what he loved best when he vanished – as they released the last known images of him mountaineering.
With the hunt for the British actor in the California mountains entering its sixth day, poignant photographs that he sent to his grandson show him looking relaxed and happy while climbing well above the clouds.
Mr Sands, who starred in more than 150 films and television series including A Room with a View, sent the pictures of himself climbing the Weisshorn mountain in the Swiss Alps to his grandson last September.
A family member told The Independent: “This is how he would love to be seen, doing what he loved best – a heroic mountaineer, and thrilled to send a picture of him looking so happy to share with his beloved grandson, Billy.”
And a friend described him as “a Byronesque romantic and an adventurer who is drawn to the extremes of nature, relishing the freedom of mountains”.
Sands pictured climbing the Weisshorn, said to be more serious than the Matterhorn
(Supplied)
Mr Sands was scaling a section of the 14,783ft Weisshorn when the colourful pictures were taken.
The images, which Julian sent to Billy in September and have been given exclusively to The Independent, show the father of three using climbing gear including ropes, wearing a helmet and with a rucksack strapped tightly to his back.
In one photograph, he is holding a bottle of water and turning to smile at the camera while seated on a peak.
A keen and experienced hiker, the 65-year-old once described his happiest moment as “close to a mountain summit on a glorious cold morning”.
Sands sent these images to his grandson
( Supplied)
The Weisshorn, a three-ridged pyramid-shaped mountain about 15 miles from the Matterhorn, is described by climbing experts as “more serious” than its famous neighbour.
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“One of the most difficult 4,000m peaks, the Weisshorn is a long and serious climb by any route,” according to Alpine Guides.
His wife, the writer Evgenia Citkowitz, reported him missing last Friday while he was out on America’s San Gabriel mountains, and a close friend told The Independent that his family were frantic with worry.
A huge search operation was launched for Mr Sands, and on Friday crews found a car believed to belong to him, which they towed away.
Henry Sands, Julian’s son and Billy’s father, joined the search in the Californian mountains alongside an experienced hiker. The West Yorkshire-born actor, who lives in north Hollywood, played journalist Jon Swain in The Killing Fields, and is also known for starring in the Merchant Ivory romance A Room with a View.
The actor loves mountain-climbing, his family say
( Supplied)
A friend told The Independent: “Julian is wild and never contained by rules or boundaries. He is a Byronesque romantic and an adventurer who is drawn to the extremes of nature, relishing the freedom of mountains which he conquers all over the world.
“He is deeply inspired by the Romantic poets and his performances of their work are spellbinding and come from a passionate love of literature.
“He is a friend bound by Homeric qualities of loyalty and living life to the full.
“He takes no prisoners and yet is as gentle and generous and sensitive as the poets he so admired.
“His total and absolute adoration is always towards his wife the novelist and screenwriter Evgenia Citkowitz by whom he has two daughters.
“And his son Henry by his first wife the journalist Sarah Sands is closely bonded to him and joined the search for him in the Californian mountains where he went missing.
“His roles are often quirky and original as he moved away from the Merchant Ivory matinee idol roles in which he has cemented himself as one of the great British stars.”
Julian Sands’s friend described him as ‘a Byronesque romantic and an adventurer’
(AP)
When he disappeared, the actor was thought to have been somewhere on the popular Baldy Bowl Trail, which climbs 3,900ft over 4.5 miles to the highest summit in the San Gabriel Mountains.
Search and rescue crews to suspend the search over the weekend because of avalanche threat, a department spokesperson told said, with authorities continuing to use drones.
In recent years, several experienced hikers have died due to Mount Baldy’s icy terrain. It’s considered one of the most dangerous peaks to climb in the US.
Snowboarder Blake Nielson records surreal moment avalanche sweeps him down Utah mountain
A frightening video captured the moment a snowboarder was swept away in an avalanche as he tore down a mountain in Utah Sunday.
Blake Nielson filmed the heart-stopping close-call as he was snowboarding in Big Cottonwood Canyon in Salt Lake.
The boarder said he dropped into a bowl near Kessler Peak and made a heel side turn when “an isolated wind slab broke loose below and above me which knocked me off my feet and took me for a ride,” in an incident report on the Utah Avalanche Center website.
In the helmet-cam video he shared, Nielson can be seen cruising down the mountain when the snow underneath him suddenly gave way and he shouted to his boarding partner “Logan, I’m sliding” over the radio.
“I’m staying on top, but I am sliding,” he yelled out.
Nielson was able to stay above the snow and make it out unscathed by making “swimming motions” with his arms and kicking out his board.
He was carried away with the rush of moving snow for about 300 feet, at which point he was able to slow down and come to a stop while the rest of the snow continued sliding down the mountainside.
The snow slid about 1,300 feet, Nielson said.
He said he and his snowboarding pals had tested the stability of the snow dropping into the Greaseball Couloir and found “no deep instabilities in the snow structure.”
The wind, however, was more unpredictable than they imagined, he added.
“Respect the wind,” Nielson warned. “Even a small ‘manageable’ wind pocket can break and carry you a long way in steep terrain with long runouts.”
Two skiers also reported being swept away in avalanches in Salt Lake caused by the wind in separate incidents Sunday.
Neither was harmed.
According to Utah Avalanche Center, there have been no reported deaths caused by avalanches in the state since 2021.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, two snowmobilers were caught in a large avalanche near Winter Park Saturday and died after being buried under the snow.
P-22, Los Angeles’ famous mountain lion, has been euthanized
CNN
—
P-22, a mountain lion who has spent years in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, has been euthanized after likely suffering injuries in a “vehicle strike,” officials say.
The big cat made made headlines last month after he attacked and killed a resident’s leashed chihuahua. He was captured by authorities on Monday, who used GPS data from his tracking collar to locate and anesthetize him.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife made the decision to euthanize P-22 after a “comprehensive medical evaluation,” according to a news release Saturday.
The department said the “compassionate euthanasia” was unanimously recommended by the medical team at San Diego Zoo Safari Park and conducted under general anesthesia.
P-22 was given an “extensive evaluation” which “showed significant trauma to the mountain lion’s head, right eye and internal organs, confirming the suspicion of recent injury, such as a vehicle strike,” said the department. “The trauma to his internal organs would require invasive surgical repair.”
The 12-year old mountain lion also had “significant pre-existing illnesses, including irreversible kidney disease, chronic weight loss, extensive parasitic skin infection over his entire body and localized arthritis,” according to the release.
He was in poor health overall and “may also have had additional underlying conditions not yet fully characterized by diagnostics,” said the department.
Officials will not be seeking information on P-22’s possible run-in with a vehicle, they added.
“This situation is not the fault of P-22, nor of a driver who may have hit him,” wrote the department. “Rather, it is an eventuality that arises from habitat loss and fragmentation, and it underscores the need for thoughtful construction of wildlife crossings and well-planned spaces that provide wild animals room to roam.”
P-22 become a Los Angeles celebrity when he was photographed beneath the iconic Hollywood sign by a camera trap. The image was featured in the December 2013 issue of National Geographic.
The mountain lion even had his own Facebook and Instagram pages, where fans left heartfelt messages on Saturday.
P-22 also made headlines for breaching a 9-foot fence at the Los Angeles Zoo and mauling a koala in 2016.
Officials throughout California issued statements marking the mountain lion’s death, including Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“P-22’s survival on an island of wilderness in the heart of Los Angeles captivated people around the world and revitalized efforts to protect our diverse native species and ecosystems,” Newsom said in a news release.
Newsom’s father was a founder of the Mountain Lion Foundation and championed permanent protections for the species, according to the release.
“The iconic mountain lion’s incredible journey helped inspire a new era of conserving and reconnecting nature, including through the world’s largest wildlife overpass in Liberty Canyon,” Newsom added. “With innovative coalitions and strategies to restore vital habitat across the state, we’ll continue working to protect California’s precious natural heritage for generations to come.”
Earlier this year construction on a wildlife crossing spanning 10 lanes along Highway 101 began, with the hopes of creating a safer way for animals to roam in the region. In addition, Newsom promised $50 million for other similar projects throughout the state.
Beth Pratt, the California regional executive director for the National Wildlife Federation, also remembered the mountain lion in an emotional news release. She said it is “hard to imagine I will be writing about P-22 in the past tense now,” and expressed hope that future California mountain lions would be able to roam safely.
“Thank you for the gift of knowing you, P-22. I’ll miss you forever,” Pratt said. “But I will never stop working to honor your legacy, and although we failed you, we can at least partly atone by making the world safer for your kind.”
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated when authorities captured P-22. He was captured on Monday.
I am Superman: The Trek EXe mountain e-bike, reviewed
Enlarge / The Fuel EXe 9.9 XX1 AXS.
Trek Bikes
I rediscovered my bike after a few weeks in lockdown. At first, I just pedaled my cheap, steel-framed bike around the neighborhood. After a few rides, It dawned on me that this was a mountain bike! So I took it to my closest trail.
That first exhilarating ride is forever etched into my memory. The early morning sun breaking between the trees as deer darted away, the sound of tires on packed earth, and the stupid grin on my face as I rode fast, flirting at the edge of disaster—or at least pain—with my inexperience on trails. I was hooked to the point of riding bike into the ground, taking a perverse pleasure every time something broke and I upgraded it. I eventually upgraded to a Trek Fuel EX 7, and I love it.
The Fuel EX is Trek’s full-suspension trail mountain bike family intended for various terrains, from flowy to techie. Like every model in Trek’s lineup, it comes in a large range of trim levels, including aluminum and carbon frames. (My EX 7 has an alloy frame.)
Currently, the EXe version is only available for the highest-specced 9.x bikes with carbon frames, but it is hoped that there will be an aluminum frame option in the near future.
-
Trek’s rich gearhead history displayed at its Corporate offices in Waterloo, Wis.
Sheldon Waite -
Trek owns miles of fun flowy trails that they use to test bikes and as a perk for employees to use.
Sheldon Waite
Getting my hands on the Fuel EXe 9.9 XX1 AXS involved a two-hour drive to Trek HQ in Waterloo, Wisconsin. There, I not only had a chance to speak with members of the team that developed the Trek Fuel EXe, I also got to ride Trek’s private trails.
With the Fuel Exe, Trek is targeting the single-track mountain biker who rides for fun, fitness, and the outdoor experience. To achieve the look, feel, and even sound of a traditional mountain bike, Trek partnered with German technology company TQ. TQ’s patented harmonic pin-ring drive can deliver 50 Nm of torque in a tiny package that fits neatly behind the chainring.
The motor offers this torque at a low RPM as it achieves a large gear reduction in a single step. Its movement is akin to a Wankel rotary engine. With the battery pack hiding in the down tube and minimalistic controls, the entire battery-motor combo adds just 8.6 lbs to the weight—an impressively low-weight addition in exchange for some real power. My EX 7 weighs just under 32 lb; the EXe comes in at 38.5 lb. Pedal assist tops out at 20 mph.
The electronic features are well-integrated into the EXe. The display is simple and easy to read at a quick glance while on the trail. Its handlebar controls are simple and intuitive while allowing for quick cycling between the three assist modes, Eco, Mid, and High.
Customization is done through Trek’s new phone app, which offers customization of the three e-bike modes by tailoring max power, assist level, and pedal response. The app defaults for these modes shift each up through Eco, Mid, High. A couple of weeks into my time with the EXe, I tweaked the Mid settings to give me all the power with a mid-high assist, but in a gradual and controlled way. With these settings, I found my ride experience to mimic my analog bike very closely—just easier.
How Elon Musk’s Twitter Faces Mountain of Debt, Falling Revenue and Surging Costs
To make the deal work, Mr. Musk has been trying to add subscription revenue and reassure advertisers about the platform’s future. Twitter was losing money before Mr. Musk bought the company, and the deal added a debt burden that requires fresh sources of cash.
It is tough to determine the state of the company. Twitter no longer has to file regular financial reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are crucial tools for determining a company’s financial health.
Analysts and academics have been able to piece together a picture of the company from information Mr. Musk has offered as well as details of the deal and the company’s last regulatory filings. Bankruptcy could be one result. Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person, could also raise new funds, or buy back debt from lenders, giving Twitter a buffer to turn around its business.
Here is a look at their assessments of Twitter’s financial situation and prospects.
Twitter Finances, Pre-Musk
Twitter is and was a popular tool for politicians, celebrities and journalists. But as a business, it was stagnating.
It hasn’t booked an annual profit since 2019, and posted a loss in eight years of the past decade. The company’s net loss narrowed in 2021, to $221.4 million from $1.14 billion the previous year.
Twitter has struggled to attract new users and increase revenue, which came in at about $5.1 billion last year. In its last quarterly filing as a public company, for the period ended June 30, revenue was $1.18 billion, down slightly year-over-year.
Nearly 90% of its revenue last year came from advertising, and it traditionally has been the company’s main source of revenue. In 2021, Twitter took in $4.51 billion from advertisers, and $572 million from licensing data and other services.
The company had more than $2 billion in cash and less than $600 million in net debt before the takeover talks—very little debt for a company in the S&P 500 index. But that cash position was down 35% from a year earlier as of June 30, filings show, and Mr. Musk paid for Twitter by taking on $13 billion in debt. He paid for the rest in equity, some contributed by multiple investors.
Twitter had a market capitalization of $37.48 billion in March, the month before Mr. Musk agreed to buy it, S&P data showed. Social-media stocks have slumped sharply since then. But now, according to
Jeffrey Davies,
a former credit analyst and founder of data provider Enersection LLC, “This thing’s probably not worth more than what the debt stack is, quite frankly, unless you put a lot of option value just on Elon.” Mr. Musk last month said he and investors were overpaying for the company in the short term.
Revenue Under Musk
Mr. Musk said earlier this month that Twitter had suffered “a massive drop in revenue” and was losing $4 million a day. It isn’t clear if that reflects the broader downturn in the digital ad market or the pause in advertising by several companies since Mr. Musk bought the business.
Some companies, including burrito chain
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.,
cereal maker
General Mills Inc.
and airline
United Airlines Holdings Inc.,
have paused their ad spending on Twitter over uncertainty around where the company is headed. The departure of several top executives from its ad department have soured relationships, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
The exodus of advertisers poses a threat for a company so reliant on that revenue stream. “As an online ad company, you’re flirting with disaster,” said
Aswath Damodaran,
a finance professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Deal negotiations for long-term contracts that usually begin at the end of the year haven’t taken place yet or have been put on hold. Those deals comprise more than 30% of Twitter’s U.S. ad revenue, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Revenue will likely remain under pressure until advertisers fully grasp the new business model, potentially leading many of them to return to the platform, said
Brent Thill,
a senior analyst at Jefferies Group LLC, a financial-services firm. “Those advertisers will come back if they feel that the users are there and there’s an ability to monetize their advertisement,” Mr. Thill said.
But that could take time. Mr. Thill said it could take months for advertisers to get clarity. “It’s an enigma,” he said.
Market-research firm Insider Intelligence Inc. recently cut its annual ad-revenue revenue outlook for Twitter by nearly 40% through 2024.
Mr. Musk wants the company to lean more on subscriptions and depend less on digital advertising. He said last Tuesday that the company’s upgraded subscription service, costing $7.99 a month, would launch Nov. 29.
A walkway at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. The company has aggressively cut staff to reduce expenses.
Photo:
George nikitin/Shutterstock
Reducing Costs
The company has moved quickly to slash costs, including cutting its staff by half. Salaries and other compensation make up a large chunk of overall expenses. The company had 7,500 full-time employees at the end of 2021, up from 5,500 a year earlier, filings show.
The layoffs of roughly 3,700 people could save the company roughly $860 million a year, if the employees that are leaving made an average of about $233,000 annually—the company’s most recently disclosed median pay figure. The estimated savings would represent about 15% of Twitter’s $5.57 billion in costs and expenses last year. Its costs and expenses climbed 51% from the previous year, as hiring drove up its payroll.
More employees left the company last week, rejecting Mr. Musk’s demand that they commit to working “long hours at high intensity” to stay.
Debt Mountain
Before Mr. Musk’s acquisition, net debt totaled $596.5 million as of June 30, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, a data provider. That compares with a negative balance of $2.18 billion the prior-year period, indicating a cash surplus.
Twitter paid $23.3 million in interest expense in the quarter ended June 30, according to a filing.
Now, the company will have to pay at least $9 billion in interest to banks and hedge funds over the next seven to eight years, when the $13 billion in debt matures, according to a review of Twitter’s loans by Mr. Davies, the former credit analyst.
The interest payments are substantial for a company that reported $6.3 billion in total operating cash flow over the past eight years, he said.
What’s more, the company’s debt stack now includes floating-rate debt, meaning that interest costs are set to rise as the Federal Reserve continues to increase interest rates. Twitter’s debt was entirely fixed rate before the deal.
Twitter’s credit ratings, which were below investment grade before the transaction with Mr. Musk, have deteriorated further.
Moody’s
Investors Service on Oct. 31 downgraded Twitter’s rating to B1 from Ba2, a two-notch drop, and S&P Global Ratings on Nov. 1 downgraded it to B- from BB+, a five-notch drop.
If Twitter files for bankruptcy, Elon Musk’s $27 billion investment would likely be wiped out.
Photo:
Susan Walsh/Associated Press
Financial Prospects
Twitter’s financial challenges could result in the company filing for bankruptcy, raising equity or buying back some debt from its lenders, analysts and academics said.
If Twitter files for bankruptcy, as Mr. Musk warned was possible in an all-hands meeting earlier this month, his $27 billion investment would likely be wiped out because equity holders are the last to be paid when a company restructures.
Buying back debt from lenders at a steep discount would help the company reduce its debt load and interest costs as well as its valuation, which would be beneficial in the long run, Mr. Davies said.
“I don’t think they can issue any more debt,” Mr. Davies said. “It’s a really, really tough structure.”
The company could also replace some of the debt with equity, both from Mr. Musk and from outside investors, said
David Kass,
a finance professor at the University of Maryland’s
Robert H. Smith
School of Business. For that, Mr. Musk would need to persuade potential investors that he has a viable long-term business plan, he said. Replacing debt could enable the company to generate cash. Mr. Musk has said some of his latest
Tesla Inc.
stock sale, yielding almost $4 billion in cash, was because of Twitter.
If successful, the company could generate positive free cash flow in two or three years, which it could use to pay down the residual debt and eventually go public again, Mr. Kass said. “The prospect of an eventual IPO within three to five years would be a very attractive enticement for large funds,” he said.
—Theo Francis and Jennifer Williams-Alvarez contributed to this article.
Write to Mark Maurer at mark.maurer@wsj.com
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