American Skiing Co. is positioning itself to be debt-free so it can invest in its Maine ski resorts, Chief Executive Officer B.J. Fair said in a statement this week.

Fair said the company had entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Killington and Pico resorts in Vermont to SP Land Co. for $83.5 million. That announcement Tuesday follows another that the company would also sell Mount Snow in Vermont and Attitash in New Hampshire for $73.5 million, and another that it would sell Steamboat Springs resort in Colorado for $265 million.

“As a result of these transactions, the company expects to repay all bank debt, junior subordinated debt, and have substantial resources to address the needs of our Sunday River and Sugarloaf resorts in Maine and The Canyons in Utah.”

Meanwhile ASC’s stock price gained another 33 cents per share Friday going from an opening price of 65 cents a share to a closing price of 98 cents a share. The stock also hit a new 52-week high Friday at one point selling for $1.10 per share. ASC stock when first offered to the public in 1998 went for $18 per share.

Public relations officials with the Park City-based American Skiing Co. said Friday that they are talking with employees nationwide as the company looks to “resize” after the anticipated sale of five of its eight ski areas.

David Hirasawa, an ASC spokesman, confirmed corporate officials had briefed workers in Bethel on Thursday on the pending downsizing after the sale of resorts in Colorado, New Hampshire and Vermont are complete later this year. He was unsure how many employees are at the Bethel offices in a rented hangar at the airport.

He said he had no specific information regarding anonymous tips to the Sun Journal that 31 office workers in Bethel would lose their jobs between April and June. The Bethel operation is separate from Sunday River Ski Resort in neighboring Newry.

“We will have to re-evaluate the size of our corporate division,” Hirasawa said. “As part of that we’ve gone out and made these announcements, we are speaking this week and next with employees about this, but we can’t get into the particulars in regards to specific employees.”

It was out of respect to employees that the company wanted to first talk to all its workers before it announced how many jobs would be cut and from where, he said.

“Many of these people are our friends, we know these folks, they’ve all done terrific work for the company and we want to treat them with the utmost respect,” Hirasawa said.

Officials at the Maine Department of Labor said they have not been notified by ASC that any jobs would be cut in Bethel but said the company is not required to notify the state or the community unless more than 100 jobs are to be eliminated.

“We don’t have anything in hand right now,” said Adam Fisher, a department spokesman. The department has contacted ASC and offered its services so if layoffs are pending the state can help workers retrain, find new jobs and sign up for unemployment benefits, Fisher said.

Hirasawa said he didn’t expect the corporate downsizing to impact dramatically workers at the individual resort level.

Chip Carey, ASC’s director of communications, “We want to make sure everyone involved is individually communicated with and has a chance to have a conversation about their future with us. We are going to treat them with the type of respect they deserve.”

Neither Carey nor Hirasawa would comment on rumors that Les Otten, ASC’s founder and the former owner of Sunday River, had resigned from the company’s board of directors so he could bid on repurchasing the Newry ski resort.

Otten has told Sun Journal reporters repeatedly that he will comment on that issue as soon as he is free to do so, and Thursday he dismissed talk he was looking to buy back the resort.

Staff writer Terry Karkos contributed to this report.