Florida Golf Course's Field Of Buyers Narrows
At first, it looked like a 300-yard drive that split the fairway. Now, it's looking like deep rough on the Florida golf course.
What had been a veritable frenzy over the 52-acre Venice East Golf Club -- with 13 developers in the bidding -- has cooled to a field of three.
Seven months after the membership agreed to sell on the expectation of a 25-fold return, the course awaits a buyer. The sale has been delayed because of unexpected corporate taxes and a wavering real estate market.
Members of the small, par 57 course on Tamiami Trail voted overwhelmingly in favor of selling when they had more than a dozen unsolicited offers. The top one was $12 million.
Then the association's leadership was advised that taxes on the corporate profit would be about 35 percent, and builders started discounting homes.
Now the club is down to three letters of intent, with the highest one at $11 million.
"We're open, and we're going to be there quite a while," club President Frank Mack said.
Venice East has 249 shareholder-members, most of whom bought in at $1,667 back in 1983. They pooled their money to save the public Florida golf course from condo development.
The course started seeing unsolicited offers last year. A sale at $12 million, an offer that came in after the proxy statement was issued, would have translated to about $48,000 per share.
The members voted to sell if they could get at least $10.7 million after closing costs, or about $43,000 per share.
That price would have translated to a 2,500 percent profit.
Geoffrey Pflugner, the Icard, Merrill lawyer hired to handle the transaction, predicted before the January vote that the sale would land in Sarasota County's top 10 percent.
Pflugner could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Mack sounded frustrated that all the professionals around him failed to mention the the course would be subject to corporate taxes -- and how high that burden would be.
"We had an accountant. We had five real estate brokers. I kept saying, 'Give me a price, what our expenses are going to be,'" Mack said. "Nobody, nobody mentioned corporate taxes. And plus, we had an attorney."
Taylor Woodrow Homes was one of the first to make an offer last year. The company is one of the three that submitted a letter of intent in May -- after the Florida golf course revised its solicitation.
What had been a veritable frenzy over the 52-acre Venice East Golf Club -- with 13 developers in the bidding -- has cooled to a field of three.
Seven months after the membership agreed to sell on the expectation of a 25-fold return, the course awaits a buyer. The sale has been delayed because of unexpected corporate taxes and a wavering real estate market.
Members of the small, par 57 course on Tamiami Trail voted overwhelmingly in favor of selling when they had more than a dozen unsolicited offers. The top one was $12 million.
Then the association's leadership was advised that taxes on the corporate profit would be about 35 percent, and builders started discounting homes.
Now the club is down to three letters of intent, with the highest one at $11 million.
"We're open, and we're going to be there quite a while," club President Frank Mack said.
Venice East has 249 shareholder-members, most of whom bought in at $1,667 back in 1983. They pooled their money to save the public Florida golf course from condo development.
The course started seeing unsolicited offers last year. A sale at $12 million, an offer that came in after the proxy statement was issued, would have translated to about $48,000 per share.
The members voted to sell if they could get at least $10.7 million after closing costs, or about $43,000 per share.
That price would have translated to a 2,500 percent profit.
Geoffrey Pflugner, the Icard, Merrill lawyer hired to handle the transaction, predicted before the January vote that the sale would land in Sarasota County's top 10 percent.
Pflugner could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Mack sounded frustrated that all the professionals around him failed to mention the the course would be subject to corporate taxes -- and how high that burden would be.
"We had an accountant. We had five real estate brokers. I kept saying, 'Give me a price, what our expenses are going to be,'" Mack said. "Nobody, nobody mentioned corporate taxes. And plus, we had an attorney."
Taylor Woodrow Homes was one of the first to make an offer last year. The company is one of the three that submitted a letter of intent in May -- after the Florida golf course revised its solicitation.
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