Burleigh Heads beachfront apartments White Horses finally sells after nine year struggle
A NINE-year battle to sell an ageing beachfront unit block has finally ended, with apartment owners getting a $22 million payday. But there’s a big catch which means they shouldn’t be celebrating just yet.
Gold Coast
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THE finishing line finally is in sight in a very slow-run Burleigh Heads property race in which the overall stakes equate to several Melbourne Cup purses.
A nine-year battle to sell the knackered beachfront White Horses low-rise, built in the late 1950s, has ended in victory.
Most owners of the 49 units probably are relieved they won’t face nasty repair bills and that they’re getting fair value for their properties.
However, they won’t be getting too excited just yet — the majority of the nearly $22 million in ‘prizemoney’ won’t be received for at least 18 months.
That’s how long it could be before the buyer of the 3035sq m site on The Esplanade has to write the settlement cheque.
Brisbane group Nielson Properties, which has been operating for 30 years, is buying White Horses under a put-and-call deal that allows it to carry out due diligence and work to get development approval before it pays up the full purse.
The White Horses site potentially could take a tower of up to 20 levels under planning rules for the area.
FLASHBACK: WHITE HORSES PROPERTY SALE STALLS
Nielson Properties has been extremely patient, quietly sitting back for more than two years while the owners’ representatives at White Horses have doggedly been going through the expensive machinations of trying to get legal approval to sell.
Six or so owners have been resisting, possibly because they wanted a bigger payout.
The White Horses units are held under company title and legally a 100 per cent yes vote is needed for a sale.
Twice, starting in 2007, this hasn’t been attainable — the first time a fragmented shareholder group shunned a $25 million offer.
Then in 2016 a form of the current offer was blocked in court, using a technicality, by dissenters.
HIGH HOPES FOR BUYERS OF WHITE HORSES
The White Horses Pty Ltd board decided last year that the only way forward was to use company law and put White Horses Pty Ltd into voluntary liquidation.
Such a move requires only a 75 per cent yes vote from shareholders.
That was achieved at an EGM, but only after an attempt by dissenting owners failed in to get an injunction to stop the meeting.
The White Horses directors were appointed liquidators by the shareholders and led the process to sell the company’s assets.
They were able to finalise the Nielson deal.
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Nielson Properties, founded by Ross Nielson in 1987, achieved its biggest deal eight years ago when it sold the 37-floor Santos Place commercial building in Brisbane for $287 million.
The White Horses saga is similar to one that faced the vast majority of owners at Miami’s 50-year-old Nobbys Outlook holiday resort.
They were able to exit the property last year, after a six-year drama, by having court-appointed trustees sell it.
Nobbys Outlook, on a site more than twice as big as the White Horses one, sold at auction for $23.75 million.
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