22 Golf Inc. January/February 2017
acquired Oki Golf’s 10-course portfolio
in the Seattle market for $137.5 million.
The Chinese conglomerate, which owns
Hainan Airlines, said the acquisition was
designed to boost its portfolio overseas.
HNA is chasing rich Chinese golfers, and
it saw Seattle as a gateway to the North
American market.
The conglomerate already owned 13
golf courses, 11 in China and two in the
U.S – Nicklaus Club Monterey in Monterey, Calif., and Somers Pointe Golf Club
in Somers, N. Y. The sale was one of many
investments by Asian buyers in the Seattle
region.
The seller, Scott Oki, is a former Microsoft vice president who founded Oki Golf
two years after leaving Microsoft in 1992.
“While we have been approached several times regarding acquisition, this is
the first time we felt that the vision and
opportunity being presented was a strong
fit and a natural next step for the evolution of the Oki brand,” he said in a statement.
Malibu Golf Club
Malibu, Calif.
Buyer: Shinhan Golden Faith
International Development
Seller: Court-appointed receiver
Broker: Kennedy Wilson
Price: $30.5 million
A Chinese company also acquired Malibu
Golf Club. Shinhan Golden Faith International Development, a little-known Chinese investment firm, bought the deserted
and defunct club in an all-cash deal that
closed in September.
The 18-hole property sits on a 650-acre
site within the Santa Monica Mountains
Recreational Area and is fully entitled
for development as a health and wellness
golf resort institute. The property was last
bought in 2006 for $33 million by inves-
tors that included Lehman Brothers. After
the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the
club’s operator filed for bankruptcy twice,
in 2009 and 2015, before it was assigned to
a receiver by the bankruptcy court.
Bill Hoffman of Trigild, a San Diego-based firm, handled the disposition following Malibu Associates’ $47-million
loan default. Beverly Hills, Calif.-based
Kennedy Wilson’s Fred Cordova, Ed
Sachse, Ryan Eddy, Michael Puleo and
Jake Sachse represented the receiver. Hoffman told the Los Angeles Times there
were “lots of offers, some with higher
prices, but with lots of contingencies.”
Dove Canyon Golf and
Country Club, Rancho Santa
Margarita, Calif.
Buyer: SJS Tomorrow LLC
Seller: Pacific Links International
Broker: PMRG
Price: $12 million (estimated)
Three years after Ken Arimitsu represented Pacific Links International in the
purchase of Dove Canyon Golf and Country Club, the broker and senior vice president at PMRG helped Pacific Links exit
the Jack Nicklaus-designed course.
SJS Tomorrow acquired the course for
an estimated $12 million in November. SJS
Tomorrow is an affiliate of South Korean
clothing manufacturer SAE-A Trading
Co. It has owned Steele Canyon Golf Club
near San Diego for about 12 years and is
having a “very positive experience” with
another recent Southern California acquisition, Bear Creek Golf Club in Murrieta,
Calif., Arimitsu said.
Pacific Links had pledged to invest $6.2
million into the private Dove Canyon,
but the company subsequently decided
to liquidate its golf ownership interests.
Pacific Links President Rudy Anderson
said his company is focused on branding and growing its China-fueled global
golf membership-club model by partnering with properties rather than owning
them. Terms of the recent 230-acre Dove
Canyon deal were not disclosed, but local
sources said the transaction was close to
$12 million.
Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.
Buyer: Lewis Group of Cos.
Seller: Park Global
Broker: Chaparral Land Co., buyer
representative; PMRG, seller
representative
Price: $22 million
Arimitsu, who brokered close to $90 million in golf course sales in 2016, also handled the sale of Empire Lakes Golf Course
for $22 million.
“At the time of the sale, the golf course
NOI was in the neighborhood of a couple
hundred thousand,” Arimitsu said. “The
owner had no exit strategy other than to
explore other options. It was not zoned for
residential, and after working through the
process, we helped them extract the maxi-
mum economic value of the land.”
In a private deal that took nearly a year
to close, Lewis Group of Cos. acquired the
course in July with plans to redevelop the
struggling 18-hole course into a mixed-
use community with as many as 3,450
residential units and 220,000 square feet
of commercial space.
Hillcrest Country Club,
Hollywood, Fla.
Buyer: PulteGroup
Seller: Concord Wilshire Partners
Price: $25 million
PulteGroup, the nation’s third largest
homebuilder, acquired Hillcrest Golf &
Country Club for $25 million in June. The
company plans to build 645 residential
units around the 27-hole facility.
Pulte, which was once one of the country’s most active golf course developers, is
now focused on buying underperforming
courses and adding housing units.
At Hillcrest, the builder plans to build
256 townhouses and 238 single-family
homes along the 18-hole course and 151
homes around the 9-hole course.
Pulte bought the property from developer Concord Wilshire Partners, which
purchased it two years earlier with plans
Dove Canyon Golf and
Country Club, Rancho
Santa Margarita, Calif.
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