Gary Player, Abu Dhabi Investors Start $1 Billion Distressed Asset Fund

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(PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL) - Four months after Gary Player highlighted a celebrated grand opening at his signature Saadiyat Beach Golf Club in Abu Dhabi, the Hall of Fame golfer is making Arabian Peninsula headlines once again with plans for a $1 billion distressed real estate fund.

Abu Dhabi investors are providing as much as half of the capital for a fund that will target well-known golf course properties around the world, according to Player's eldest son, Marc Player, who runs the Gary Player Group based in Palm Beach County, Fla.  Player said the company was seeking private and institutional  investors, and had raised $500 million from investors based in the emirate.

This new fund is seeking to acquire "iconic resorts where there are existing hotel, residential, golf amenities that have been over-capitalized,"  Player was quoted as saying at the recent KPMG Golf Business Forum in Belek, Turkey.

"There may not be a lot of guys hiring us to design golf courses but maybe we can acquire the ones that are distressed," he added.

Gary Player is no stranger to the Persian Gulf. He designed the Saadiyat Beach golf course that opened this year as part of a massive mixed-used residential resort and cultural community, and has been appointed to design other golf-related projects in Abu Dhabi and elsewhere in the Gulf, including yet-to-be-announced developments in Dubai and Qatar.

Back in North America, Player has been active developing high-end golf resort communities, including the Cliffs at Mountain Park near Greenville, S.C. The Cliffs Communities, which also features private golf courses designed by Tom Fazio and Jack Nicklaus, is in the process of adding a new private club, High Carolinas, in collaboration with Tiger Woods.

One organization thrilled with the Player team is Abu Dhabi's Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC), the development arm of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority. As part of the Saadiyat Island master-plan, TDIC has lined up the renowned Louvre and Guggenheim Museums to anchor Saadiyat Island Cultural District. The Jean Nouvel-designed Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum are just two of the high-profile developments being built on the 10.4 square-mile natural island that lies less than 1/3 of a mile off the Abu Dhabi mainland.

In all, Saadiyat Island, located 15 minutes from the Abu Dhabi International Airport, will comprise 150,000 residents and 9,000 rooms in 29 mostly 5-star hotels when the project is completed around 2018. In one of its first U.S. interviews, TDIC marketing and public relations director Alan Gordon told the Real Estate Channel  in October 2008 that Saadiyat Island's mix of palace homes, smaller single-family homes, and townhomes start at around $1.5 million.

Other property developers throughtout the Gulf have spent billions of dollars building golf resorts branded by top players including Tiger Woods, Ernie Els and Colin Montgomerie. But the decline in property prices has sapped investor demand.

The new Player fund hopes to take advantage of some of these distressed assets.

For instance, the fund is reportedly in discussions with the owners of golf courses that include Dubai World's Turnberry Resort in Scotland and ultra-luxurious Sea Island resort in Georgia.

The Turnberry Resort, which hosted last year's British Open, is owned by the Dubai World unit Istithmar. It also owns the Pearl Valley Signature Golf Estate and Spa, a championship golf course development in the Cape Winelands region of South Africa.

Analysts said there were good opportunities for cash-rich investors to step in and buy golf resorts that the current owners were struggling to fund.

"I think it's a major opportunity and it's the right timing," Andrea Sartori, a partner at KPMG property, leisure and tourism advisory services, was quoted as saying at the KMPG golf conference in Turkey.

"This economic situation provides quite a few opportunities for the development of funds which are going to focus either on the development of golf courses, or more on the acquisition of distressed assets. It's not necessarily only in the high-end market. There are also opportunities in the mid-scale sector as well."

He added that prices for golf assets now available were particularly attractive.

"Prices are relatively depressed at the moment," Sartori added. "It doesn't mean necessarily that those assets are distressed assets."

Whatever the case might be, they could be excellent opportunities for Player's new investment team.

Read Related Real Estate Channel posting: Abu Dhabi Primed to Take Off with Louvre, Guggenheim in Tow.

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