Skift Take
There's no denying that Switzerland's ski towns could use and upgrade, but their biggest challenge now isn't modernization, it's the powerful Swiss franc and how it scares away visitors.
Since hotelier Tobias Zurbriggen can remember, the business of running Saas-Fee has been a local affair. Now, the Swiss ski resort neighboring the Matterhorn is feeling the heat from a New York-based financier.
Edmond Offermann, a nuclear scientist turned millionaire working for hedge fund Renaissance Technologies LLC, invested 15 million Swiss francs ($16.4 million) in 2010 to revive Saas-Fee’s struggling ski-lift company.
“It’s like a hobby which completely got out of control,” Offermann, 53, said in an interview from Long Island, New York. He wants to shake things up by managing hotels and the ski-lift operator in one company controlled by a single chief executive.
The franc’s 30 percent appreciation against the euro during the past five years is making his project more difficult as skiers look for better deals in euro-zone countries. Offermann is now seeking funds from international investors to finance new lift projects and connect Saas-Fee to Zermatt to make the valley less vulnerable to seasonal swings and competition from neighboring Austria, Italy and France.
Offermann, who is a Dutch national, got a taste of Switzerland when he worked at the CERN particle physics laboratories near Geneva during a one-year bre
