The membership of the 95-year-old private club in Wichita, Kansas overwhelmingly approved the arrangement that will pay off all club debt, lower annual member dues, start $1 million of immediate capital projects and bar all future assessments on the membership.
Crestview Country Club, a 95-year old private club in Wichita, Kansas, completed its recapitalization with Newport Beach, Calif.-based Concert Golf Partners on June 30th. The transaction, overwhelmingly approved by the member-owned 36-hole club’s Board of Directors and its members, pays off all club debt, lowers annual member dues, injects more than $1 million into immediate capital projects at the club and bars any future assessments on the membership.
C&RB reported on the impending arrangement in April: http://clubandresortbusiness.com/2016/04/22/concert-golf-partners-buy-crestview-cc/
“This partnership with Concert Golf ends our debt challenges, and ends the era of funding capital projects with member assessments,” said Rich High, Crestview’s President, after the arrangement was completed.
“We just hosted our 16th consecutive Web.com Tour event at Crestview last week, and now this week our club is debt-free and our future is brighter than ever,” added High, who directed the completion of the recapitalization in just four months after Crestview’s initial contact with Concert Golf.
Crestview Country Club, founded in 1921, is the only 36-hole club in the state of Kansas. Both the challenging North Course, which has now hosted the PGA Tour’s Web.com Air Capital Classic for 16 consecutive years, and the more relaxed South Course, are dramatic parkland-style, mature tree-lined, 18-hole Robert Trent Jones-designed golf courses.
Crestview CC also has 10 indoor and outdoor tennis courts, an Olympic-size swimming pool, and a 29,000-sq. ft. clubhouse designed for elegant and casual dining and social entertaining, plus parties and special events for the entire family.
Concert Golf CEO Peter Nanula announced that his team would immediately undertake over $1 million in new capital projects at Crestview CC, including bunker renovations; an indoor golf practice area; a splash pad and new swimming pool amenities; parking lot resurfacing; and renovation of the clubhouse, including the rear patio deck with expansive golf course views.
“Crestview CC is a great club with a terrific PGA Tour-caliber golf course and all of the amenities, but it had common capital challenges,” Nanula said. “And these capital issues are easy for us to solve. No more member assessments—we will pay for and complete the improvements much faster, at no cost to the members. No more debt—we paid off all the debt yesterday.”
Crestview CC had borrowed $4 million and began assessing the members to finance clubhouse renovations in 2007. Dues and assessments were increased several times, some members left, and yet the debt remained, Nanula said.
“The burden of bank debt and the ongoing risk of member assessments makes it difficult to attract new members and your attrition also rises,” he noted. “It impacts even the very best clubs, and the proven solution is to pay off the debt and get an experienced club operating partner to invest their funds—not the members’ money—in the club facilities.”
“Our dues are back down at market levels now, with a written guarantee of no more assessments ever again,” said Mike Payne, a Crestview Board member. “We already have lots of former members who left the club in the last few years due to the uncertainty asking if they can come back to Crestview.”
Concert Golf Partners, formed by Nanula, the founder and CEO of Arnold Palmer Golf Management, has amassed $150 million of long-term equity capital to invest in and upgrade large-scale private clubs located in major metropolitan areas. Crestview CC members will now have reciprocal privileges at 13 clubs that have been acquired by Concert Golf, including Blue Hill Country Club in Boston, Mass., West Lake Country Club in Augusta, Ga., and MacGregor Downs CC in Raleigh, N.C., (http://clubandresortbusiness.com/2016/04/28/getting-back-track-macgregor-downs-cc/), as well as at more than 150 TPC™ clubs and Pacific Links International clubs worldwide.
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