Relief for Irish Florida investors as Goldman takeover bid fails

GOLDMAN Sachs Mortgage Co, owed nearly $200 million (€161.5m) by the Irish investors in Florida’s Sawgrass Marriott Resort, has failed in its bid to take over and sell off the company’s assets.

RQB, initially led by financier Niall McFadden and property developer Paddy Kelly, assembled up to 40 unnamed investors in 2006 to acquire the hotel with connections to the Professional Golfers’ Association (GPA) tour.

Mr Kelly no longer has any involvement in the project.

A ruling by bankruptcy Judge Paul M Glenn in Jacksonville, Florida, threw the Irish group of investors a lifeline when he denied Goldman’s request to lift the automatic stay, which is part of the bankruptcy code that protects a company from creditors’ efforts to collect on its assets.

Judge Glenn has given the company until December 29 to come up with a survival plan and his decision “augurs well for the survival of the business”, a company spokesman said last night.

Goldman Sachs Commercial Mortgage Capital helped finance the $220.5m purchase of the 65-acre resort in Ponte Vedra Beach by the group.

It is owed about $192.5m and has not had any payments against the debt since last August.

The property, purchased in 2006, was valued at $135.3m in an appraisal ordered by Goldman.

Last night the spokesman for the Irish investors said the decision by the judge “was a vote of confidence in the group and in its ability to trade its way out of the current difficulties”.

RQB Resort is the exclusive partner to the PGA Tour’s Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass, known as TPC Sawgrass.