That capbacks number obviously can change if we have future development opportunities and/or acquisitions. In terms our acquisition opportunities, I believe it is important to know that we have a proven track record in our ability to make successful acquisitions. We intend to continue to concentrate our efforts in the day and the overnight drive segments of the ski industry where we have historically been very successful. We are the only public company to operate primarily in this space and we believe we can continue to grow our portfolio through acquisitions. With the success of our recent IPO we have significantly lowered the cost of our capital and have traded a potential currency with our stock. We have also unencumberedfive of our properties to allow us to have more liquidity if needed. All these factors combined should facilitate our ability to do more acquisitions. With that, now I would like to turn it over to Steve for some clarity on some additional financial items.
Steve Mueller, Vice President and C.F.O. Peak Resorts.
Thanks Tim. Good Morning, and let me add my thanks to all of you for joining us today. As Tim noted, I am going to discuss results for the first six months of our fiscal year and also provide some details regarding the ways in which we have used the IPO proceeds to enhance our financial position. Six months revenue is up about $600,000. This was primarily a result of our summer business with increased visits to our resorts. But not only did we have an increase in admissions revenue, we also saw a nice increase in food & beverages and retail sales. We did install a new zip rider at Attitash this past year. Unfortunately, we did not get it completed until September, so this year will not show significant contribution from that zip rider, but we would expect a very nice contribution in fiscal 16. Our resort expenses increased as a result of compensation and related expenses, primarily resulting from wage increases to our full-time employees that were implemented in the fall of 2013. 2014 saw the full effect of those wage increases. In addition workman comp, rates are higher this year.
General administrative expenses increased by approximately $400,000 as a result of increased legal fees related to litigation and an increased other professional fees – the ones related to the IPO. The IPO costs are capitalized and will be used to offset the proceeds from the IPO. Our Income Tax provision is based on the anticipated income tax rate for fiscal 2015. We do not expect to have a significant income tax cash payment because of our intervals in fiscal 2015. The capbacksexpense for the six months was $6.3 million, $1.8 million related to the Attitash zip rider and additional $2 million related to the snow making improvements we did at our Attitash, Wild Cat and Mount Snow resorts. I am happy to say that the snow making improvements we made at Wild Cat allowed us to open Wild Cat as the first resort in New England, top to bottom, this year. We still believe our capbacksfor fiscal 15 will be between $8 million and $10 million. The major capbacks projects that we need at our current resorts will be completed in fiscal 15 and we believe that going forward capbacks rates for the existing resorts will be between 4% and 5% of revenue.
At October 31 the restricted cash balance on our balance sheet primarily was the result of funds held in escrow for our EB-5 investors. Those are the funds that they have invested with us that we are holding until we are able to break that escrow. We are also happy to say that we were able to use the proceeds of IPO to pay down approximately $76 million worth of our debt. Our reduction in interest expense is the result of a debt payment as approximately the same amount that we are anticipating in our annual dividend to be. We, also in our release, have done a calculation of our weighted average shares as they stand, based on today’s share count. We thought that would be helpful. As to the 3rd and 4th quarters’ items, as Tim mentioned, we do approximately 90% of our revenue in the 3rd and 4th quarters. Our revenue is also, pretty evenly, split between those two quarters. In addition, as Tim mentioned, January on average has an excess of 60% of our 3rd Quarter revenues.
