The financially-stricken Balmoral Golf Club, which in recent weeks asked its members for £1,000 each to bail it out of trouble, is to consider selling to a Dublin property group.
The Irish News revealed how the club, as well as that £1,000 ‘loan’ (which has since been repurposed as a ‘gift’), was looking at selling its clubhouse and greenkeeper’s sheds, or potentially reducing the south Belfast course to nine holes as it struggles with falling membership fees required to service a £1 million-plus debt on which it is making huge interest payments.
And it has now emerged that Balmoral GC has served notice of an extraordinary general meeting to be held on Wednesday November 27 at which attendees will discuss a revived takeover proposal from Merrion Property Group.
Merrion owns a 149-acre estate in Drumbo, which it bought in 2020 and which former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley had been brought in to design a new championship course complete with clubhouse.
Balmoral were being offered the change, with financial add-ons, to move to Ballylesson, in Drumbo, if it sold its 75-acre site to Merrion, which is owned by Dublin property developer Michael Roden.
However, Merrion seemingly lost patience, and put the Drumbo site up for sale in September for £3.25 million, which is about £1m more than it paid for the site four years earlier.
But now Balmoral members are being asked at this upcoming EGM to consider and, if thought fit, approve a resolution to enters into legally binding agreements on basis of a four-part proposal from Merrion Property Group (MPG) to the board of the company (the golf club).
The terms of the proposal include:
- MPG purchases the existing Carval loan, or enters into a new loan agreement with the company, on the basis that it will advance monies to Balmoral to cover the forecasted shortfall in the year to March 2025, forecasted annual shortfalls in the following three years, and planning fees. Interest will be charged on that loan from MPG at the rate of 5% and rolled up.
- The company and MPG will enter into an option agreement permitting MPG to purchase the Balmoral course, conditional on MPG obtaining suitable planning permission at Drumbo to construct a new golfing facility.
- If satisfactory planning permission is obtained on both sites, a new golfing facility comprising an 18-hole Paul McGinley-designed golf course, practice range and clubhouse facility will be constructed at Ballylesson and ownership will be transferred to the Company.
- Balmoral GC will receive £4 million from MPG dependent on the number of units for which planning permission is granted (it want to build least 350 houses and 250 apartments. Additional payments will be made of £15,000 per house in excess of 350 units and £5,000 per apartment in excess of 250 units. Balmoral will receive a further £10,000 for each supplementary non-social and affordable house unit in excess of 450 house units.
The proposal will also say that until such time at the new course, practice range and clubhouse facility at Ballylesson is ready, members will continue to play on the existing Balmoral course.