Eureka Group: How Gold Coast retirement company halted hostile takeover

A Coast company, which is in the business of housing seniors and once had a flirtation with the troubled Couran Cove resort, is moving forward after winning a battle but not the war.

Eureka Group, which is in the business of housing seniors and once had a flirtation with the troubled Couran Cove resort, is moving forward after winning a battle but not the war.

The listed company, which has a Varsity Lakes office, has rebuffed a hostile takeover bid from a bigger group that’s also got a foot in the affordable accommodation field.

ASX company Aspen has ended up with nearly 36 per cent of Eureka’s shares, which leaves it short of any sort of control.

Aspen clearly has been eyeing Eureka for some time and is highly likely to have another tilt, be it by another bid or by using ASX rules to ‘creep’ past a 50 per cent holding.

In the meantime, it’s business as usual for Eureka, which has expanded into a national owner and operator of rental villages for seniors.

It’s managing 50 or so villages that are home to 2800 units.

Eureka Pioneer Place retirement village at 17 Meron St, Southport. Picture Glenn Hampson

One of those villages, Eureka Pioneer Place, is in Southport.

The company, which has former Ariadne Australia chief Murray Boyte at the helm, describes itself as the only pure-play provider of affordable seniors’ rental accommodation in Australia.

Aspen, which has no Queensland villages, targets the 40 per cent of Australians earning less than $90,000 a year and offers not only accommodation, but lifestyle and holiday options.

Aspen has a market capitalisation of more than $350 million, while its hostile target is valued at around $160 million.

The Aspen interest in Eureka first came out into the open 15 months ago when it proposed an all-scrip merger via an off-market offer.

Discussions started between the groups but Aspen aborted its plan three weeks later because it was not prepared to wait until Eureka completed an independent valuation of its property portfolio.

Roll ahead to January and Aspen reared its head again, this time with an all-scrip takeover bid.

The bid, based on the then share prices of the two entities, quickly was ruled inadequate by the Eureka directors, who said it undervalued their company.

Two revised Aspen bids followed but the majority of Eureka investors sat tight.

Meanwhile, Eureka has come a long way since it decided to focus on rentals for seniors 13 years ago.

One of its early Gold Coast investments was a $7 million one in 2015 in the Royal Terranora Resort at Bilambil Heights, a property which included 61 units which were strata-titled and sold off.

In the same year Eureka took over the management of Couran Cove, saying it had become involved to ‘save the idyllic destination from disrepair.’

It planned a $100 million overhaul to breathe new life into the resort and to buy or manage more than 300 units, 190 of which had not been built.

The Couran foray did not end swimmingly and Eureka ended up walking away in 2017.

Since then it has put its business on a firm footing, hence the interest from Aspen.

The Eureka income today is mostly underwritten by the inflation-linked government payments to tenants, via Centrelink and the Department of Veteran Affairs.

Ninety per cent of the tenants are receiving payments and the villages, some of which offer ‘home-style meals’, are 98 per cent occupied.

CARLIN HOTEL SALE

The Carlin Boutique Hotel founder Kevin Carlin Photo: Kate Roberge

Kevin Carlin, a former Gold Coast developer who died in New Zealand late last year, has had his Queenstown pride visited by receivers.

The Carlin Hotel, on a hillside overlooking Lake Wakatipu, is being sold in the wake of the receivers moving on three Carlin companies.

The piano-playing Kevin, an American with previous development success in Queenstown, completed the boutique hotel in early 2022 and unveiled plans to fly guests from the Gold Coast across the Tasman in private jets.

The nine-title property has 16 rooms, a restaurant and gymnasium, and an Eagles Nest penthouse suite with access to a rooftop terrace with spa and outdoor firepit.

SALES SUCCESS

Aerial photograph of the Star of the Sea site in Southport.

Liyun Cao, director of the Chinese group that’s trying to sell the Star of the Sea site in Southport, has had success in a six-year effort to exit a waterfront home in the suburb.

The Wildash St property, which is on two titles, was bought by the 45-year-old Liyun for $2.27 million in the same month that the deal on the Star site was done in 2013.

It was put on the market in 2018 at $3 million-plus and the target later peaked at $4.95 million.

The seven-bedroom house, on a 1741 sqm holding that also has a frontage to Radford St, has sold for $3.5 million.

$6.1M DOESN’T CUT IT

Scott Hookey with his wife Lisa Hookey. Picture: Jerad Williams

A mortgagee has come up spades in an effort to sell the Palm Beach penthouse of Lisa Hookey, who moved to the beachfront after selling a Sanctuary Cove house for $5.85 million in tandem with former racing-car driver Scott Hookey.

An auction of the Temple apartment drew three bidders but the top tilt, at $6.1 million, didn’t cut the mustard with the mortgagee.

The two-floor apartment, which spans 675 sqm and cost Lisa $5.5 million in 2021, crowns the eight-floor beachfront building and has a rooftop pool.

Temple was developed by Pimpama Investments, a company which at the time was suggested to have links to former milkman Eddy Groves, founder of the failed ABC Learning.

MOVING ON UP

Todd Mould, a 34-year-old developer who’s been stepping up his activities on the Gold Coast, is all systems go with plans for a twin-building hotel and apartment project on a $32 million site overlooking the ocean at Kirra.

His Mayd group has won a green light for the 10-level project on a nine-title site that fronts Golden Four Drive and Pacific Pde and will use its own construction arm.

Todd’s buying the site from elderly sisters Elizabeth Meixner and Helga Lithgo, who already have received a multimillion-dollar deposit on the near 4800 sqm holding and get the rest of their cash next year.

Todd has been building villas at Mermaid Beach, has just sold a Miami industrial holding, and is poised to relaunch a luxury apartment tower at Burleigh Heads.