Concert Golf Partners has purchased the first mortgage of the Oklahoma City, Okla. property, which entered receivership earlier this year. A small group of members has also expressed interest in buying the club.
At least two groups are vying to purchase Gaillardia Golf and Country Club, which entered receivership earlier this year, reported The Oklahoman of Oklahoma City, Okla.
Newport Beach, Calif.-based Concert Golf Partners has purchased the first mortgage on Gaillardia from Bank of the Ozarks and has expressed interest in owning the club, The Oklahoman reported. A small group of members also want to buy the club, in the hopes of bringing the property under local ownership, it was noted.
Bank of the Ozarks sold its mortgage on Gaillardia to Concert Golf in August, The Oklahoman reported, after beginning foreclosure proceedings against Gaillardia owner Phil Herrington and his Little Rock, Ark.-based private equity firm, Herrington Inc. http://clubandresortbusiness.com/2013/07/16/gaillardia-gcc-foreclosure-action-begins/
Herrington Inc. had owned and operated Gaillardia since 2003 before the property fell into receivership.
Concert Golf’s Peter Nanula, formerly the CEO of Arnold Palmer Golf Management, confirmed to The Oklahoman that his firm had purchased the note on the property and added, “We’re clearly interested,” but declined to talk further about his company’s plans, citing the ongoing foreclosure proceedings.
In 2011, Concert Golf, which describes itself on its website as “well capitalized,” announced plans to buy up to $50 million in golf course assets, paying cash for all transactions, to take advantage of steep discounts on country club properties that struggled to make it through the recession, The Oklahoman reported. Since then it has acquired four private courses in Florida and one (the Country Club at Woodmore) in the Washington, D.C. area.
The Oklahoman also reported that Jeff McDougall, President and owner of an Oklahoma City-based drilling company, JMA Energy, is leading a group of Gaillardia members who also want to purchase the club. McDougall owns the largest house in the Gaillardia development, a 17,500 sq.-ft. gabled mansion with multiple chimneys on three acres, The Oklahoman reported.
“We’re interested in the club as homeowners and members of the community,” McDougall told The Oklahoman.
The group has been monitoring the foreclosure process with great interest in hopes of keeping the ownership of the club in Oklahoma City, McDougall added.
“We’re just kind of waiting and trying to stay up on what is going on with the court,” he said. “We’re just a group in the club that would like to see it locally owned. We think it’s the best thing for the community.”
Oklahoma City oilman Art Swanson, one of the founding members of Gaillardia, moved to hire a lawyer to intervene in the foreclosure proceedings on behalf of country club members earlier this year, The Oklahoman reported. Swanson is concerned that members won’t have a say in the future of the club, and that more than $2 million in membership deposits held in a club account will be erased through the foreclosure process.
Swanson also believes that Gaillardia’s membership bylaws give members the right of first refusal to purchase the club if it goes up for sale, The Oklahoman reported.
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