Second attempt at St Tropez package deal
THE biggest site amalgamation game in town, unsuccessfully played out last year by a Chinese buyer, could be back on.
The big-money game involves the 40-year-old St Tropez apartments, shops and offices property fronting Orchid Ave in the heart of Surfers Paradise.
An entrepreneurial property agency based nearby is hoping to get the property’s 80 owners to agree to call options which would last for two years.
During that time St Tropez would be the subject of a ‘highly targeted’ off-market sales campaign.
The heads of the two bodies corporate have told owners that accepting the call option offer would be “a step in the right direction”.
Many of them probably feel rather bruised after what turned into a virtual fiasco last year with the Chinese attempt to buy St Tropez and secure its blue-chip 4434sq m site.
That attempt, which started mid-year, went off the rails in October.
In January, the would-be buyer filed actions in the Brisbane Supreme Court against owners, claiming contract breaches and the return of deposits that ranged from $41,000 to $70,000.
The bulk of those actions have since been discontinued.
The party behind the latest move to pull together all owners in an amalgamation exercise is Crown Realty International, with one Reg (aka Regus) Broadway the frontman.
Crown’s outlined a fourpart strategy, starting with the call options, which it says, if all owners granted them, would give a buyer certainty that a deal would proceed.
Part two was to conduct “the normal due diligence” and prepare a data room for would-be buyers.
The time needed for due diligence would be further ‘streamlined’ by evaluating the St Tropez site’s potential in terms of a development application.
Crown is also proposing working with “hand-selected” high-profile property agents from international groups to sell St Tropez.
The upside for Crown presumably is the commission on what could be a
$60 million-plus deal.
The agency estimates it will be up for $100,000 or more in marketing and call option expenses if the owners give its plan the green light.
Crown’s Reg says the Chinese party behind last year’s amalgamation bid has no involvement this time around, and neither does the fellow who helped in that bid, Sunshine Coast town planner Jason Hague.
The Chinese attempt was made by company Greenhill One, associated with one Liang Sun.
In July, with Jason doing his bidding, Liang paid $6.55 million at auction for a property overlooking the ocean on The Esplanade and close to the St Tropez rear boundary. The Crown Realty move depends on all St Tropez owners joining the party and one of the more interesting ones among them is veteran fashion designer Carla Zampatti who has owned eight street-front shops since 1982.
An interested observer might well be developer Jim Raptis, who built St Tropez in the late 1970s and probably would love to have such a prime site today.