SALT LAKE CITY (AP) –American Skiing Co. will pay President and Chief Executive B. J. Fair a $400,000 salary to run the company that owns eight resorts, including two in Maine.

Fair will be eligible for an annual bonus doubling his salary. He received a $25,200 bonus for signing the agreement after working since September 2003 without a contract.

Fair restructured the company’s debt and helped improve the performance of its struggling stock since then. The value dropped as low as 10 cents a share last year, but rebounded to 74 cents a share in December. It closed Tuesday at 29 cents on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board system.

Company spokesman David Hirasawa said a compensation subcommittee of the board determined Fair’s annual salary was “in line with where the market stands for executives.”

Fair’s agreement was signed five days after American Skiing subsidiary Mount Snow Ltd. sold one of two resorts it runs outside of Wilmington, Vt.

American Skiing’s resorts include Maine’s Sunday River and Sugarloaf USA.

Mount Snow Ltd. sold Haystack ski resort to Tyringham Ridge Inc. for $5 million.

The sales agreement also gave Tyringham Ridge a right-of-first-refusal to purchase Howe Farm, real estate owned by Mount Snow that is not part of the ski resort.

Haystack is a small resort that opens only on weekends and holidays when Mount Snow attracts bigger crowds.

The two mountains are about three miles apart, Hirasawa said, have their own base facilities and lifts and are completely separate.

Acquired by American Skiing founder Les Otten in 1996, Haystack has 40 beginner and intermediate trails and charges $48 per day. Based in Keene, N.H., Tyringham Ridge also bought the Haystack golf course last fall.

American Skiing’s resorts include Maine’s Sunday River and Sugarloaf USA.