This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
The members of the Panthers club have approved a proposed strategy to tie up the club’s assets into a $270 million property trust.
At annual general meeting, chief executive Glenn Matthews said their decision means Panthers can move ahead to combine most of its property assets into a trust with a major commercial partner.
The next step for the club will involve an open tender process to choose a commercial partner, which can take up to 10-12 months.
“We can now move ahead with a strategy that will further decrease our reliance on debt, free up cash from our property assets and allow us to build the 14 great clubs that we have promised our members.
“There are a number of matters that must be taken into account – not the least of which are the requirements of the Registered Clubs Act.
“And of course we must come up with the best deal for our members,” Matthews said.
Matthews added that in any partnership, Panthers would maintain a controlling interest of at least 50.1%.
“We are not selling any clubs. We are selling equity in a new business.
“We will maintain 100% control over our club business and a majority shareholding in any property partnership,” he said.
Meanwhile, all of the club’s 14 sites would continue to trade during the process.
Matthews told the meeting that the idea of a property trust is not new, he added that many big companies are doing it and he had toyed with the idea in the past.
“The major difference now is that we have a large enough parcel of assets to make us attractive to investors.
“We believe they could be worth several times that when properly developed.
“The only way we will be able to achieve that in the present climate is to partner with an organisation that has the capital and the expertise,” he added.
Matthews said since the property trust idea was fist mooted, a number of major players had expressed interest, including the smallest of them which has $4 billion in assets in Australia.
Meanwhile, Matthews told the AGM that the recent sale of two non-core properties had already cut the Group’s debt to around $74 million.
A third sale, to be completed shortly, would bring that debt down to around $60 million and leave the club with cash in hand to spend money on improvements to all its 14 sites.
By Adam Parsons
