Jon-Bxl

Hi Mel & John.
I agree that its crazy that debts can rack up like this. But the hotel has been sitting there for years racking up debts daily e.g taxes, EUC etc. So the 2.8m makes sense to me

IF its true that there was a corporate multimillion euro buyer ... Then they would have had good corporate lawyers all over the details like a rash! ANY debt would have been 100% identified up front then been a major part of the negotiations. NO surprises for them, going to the negotiating table with the various parties. Whatever the asking price was, would have been affected by these costs of purchase.

I dont know the Spanish system, but the deal could have (brainstorming here) had e.g deferred payment schedules. Maybe the Town hall offered some other incentives to the company to buy. Maybe they even excused a chunk, in return for guarantees of employment. Maybe they took the view that increased tourism, increased house values would pay off in the long term and did a deal of some kind to Kickstart the project. After all getting something is better than nothing.

Any other involved party would also be at the table willing to deal/compromise for the same reason

No way IMO was a 70k water bill (an expected one) enough to scupper the deal. 'Something else' happened IMO in the meantime.

The whole thing has been suspicious (to me personally) from the start. The big indication of that being, to me, a lack of publicity the deal was signed. The details of the contract are likely business-confidential... But who cares, as long as we saw activity to revitalise this part of CE.

Mixing metaphors here, 'something's fishy and I smell a rat. I take a big pinch of salt to any info I hear'.

Jon

MEL & JOHN

Ahhhhh , thank you very much Jon I was thinking this debt was the Golf Club's but I now understand it's the "hotel" consideration. A very loose term for the empty brick shell ! Appreciate the feedback. All the best Mel

EsuriJohn

EsuriJohn

shirley and anthony hide

This Hidrocarbon sound very much like an asset stripping vehicle. They get various elements included in the sale at price they think they can just flip individually at a profit. In which case they won't be developing anything, or paying for anything they don't think they can get the money back on. ( water bill ?) I really hope this is not the case as if it is we are back to square minus one. Please somebody give us some good news!
(Over to you Mr. Mayor!)

Jon-Bxl

Thanks John. Of course its a job-lot I should have mentioned it. But the overall principles remain.

Looks like one bit is 'stripped' already. Hopefully the buyer has plans to actually do something with this investment, and its not a buy-&-hold speculative project.

Bottom line this 'stuff behind the scenes' fuels gossip, but nothing changes materially for us till construction and or renovation begins. Worst case scenario is more years of this mess. Or is it actually normal-case!?

I cant make the meeting with the Mayor as a friend is celebrating a 'milestone birthday' and we are having a do with friends.

But I dont trust the politicians anyway the meeting for me personally is not a high priority . Any major news will light up the comms within a day anyway. We've waited a long time I can wait a day more.

See you soon

Jon

shirley and anthony hide

Lest we forget, 20 or so people have lost their jobs. That's the real tragedy. This Mayor should be doing everything possible to promote businesses in this area. Cutting red tape, facilitating growth. Hole 19 , the restaurant on the hill , would suggest otherwise.
​​​​​​The smell of male cow dung will be strong in the air tonight.

Etoman60

Hi Shirley & Anthony

Did anything come out of last nights meeting at the club? What pearls of wisdom did Javier
impart? We too are very sorry for those who have lost their Jobs, unforgivable.
many of our problems are due to the intransigence of the Town Hall and ineptitude of
successive Mayors.
Thanks for your blog.

shirley and anthony hide

My wife was there just after meeting finished. Spoke to a group of good friends of ours, all paid up golfers. I spoke to her briefly this morning . They saying golf course not opening for for foreseeable future , and they are looking for alternatives. Golf fees already paid are supposed to be refunded I believe. Hopefully the golf committee will put something out to clarify the situation.
​​​​​
​​​

Parcheval

Hi,

I'll try to summarize a bit what happened yesterday.

First of all, there is a sheet available which describes the current situation from H20 point of view and that Javier explained it to the audience:
1- H20 has got a contract for running the golf course and the club house until October '19 (was a 5 years deal) and can be extended for another 5 years in case of agreement by the owners and H20
2- all the services needed for running the different activities (course, club house) are in charge of H20, with the only exception of the water which has always be the responsibility of the company BARANDA AZUL (in charge for the water supply of the whole Esuri, not only the golf course), company which has been bought by the new owners of the golf course, HIDROCARBUROS SANTA ANA SL
3- since the acquisition of BARANDA AZUL by HIDROCARBUROS SANTA ANA SL (roughly 1 year ago, bought together with the hotel and the golf course), no water bill has been paid to the water supplier PIEDRAS-GUADIANA.
4- the water supplier PIEDRAS-GUADIANA has therefore been forced to cut off the water supply given that they haven't been paid by BARANDA AZUL for a year (70k€)
5- given the circumstances, H20 is being forced to close the golf course since there's no water available (although they have enough water for the greens only, until end of current week)
6- since all the other services (light, water for the club house, etc...) are in charge of H20, they can still run the club house meanwhile

Then there was some predefined Q&A and although not originally planned, new Q&A and the main points are the following:
- the new owners HIDROCARBUROS SANTA ANA SL have never proved to H20 being the new owners of the course. Many meetings have been organised, but they have never formally shown any documents proving their ownership
- H20 has never paid any water bill for the golf course. (According to some explanations given by Javier, looks like H20 had an agreement with FADESA indicating it was FADESA's responsibility to pay the water bills, in exchange of the works made by H20 on the golf course. My understanding here is that it is written in the contract that it is H20 responsibility to pay the water, but they agreed on something else with FADESA. Now looks like anyway that the contract is no more valid according to the law, Javier said something about it but not sure to have fully understood. In any case, I guess H20 and the new owners have been trying for a year to agree on whose responsibility it is now to pay for the water, the agreement H20-FADESA vs the contract... In any case, according to the Spanish law the one who is pursued in case of unpaid bills is the name which appears on the bills, in this case BARANDA AZUL.)
- as H20 has been informed that the water was about to be cut off, they had another meeting last week in which H20 offered 2 proposals to the new owners to avoid the current situation:
a) that H20 buys the golf course
b) that H20 gets out immediately (probably in exchange of some compensation...) so that the new owners can choose another company to take over the operation and maintenance of the golf course (Isla Canela showed interest I guess, or someone else)
but the new owners haven't replied to these 2 options...
- H20 will reimburse the proportional portion of any membership if the situation lasts longer
- H20 had a meeting yesterday with the Mayor explaining the situation, and the Mayor will try to help and do whatever it is possible to find a solution, which I guess he will more explain at the today's meeting.
- Looks like the new owners are not really keen on developing anything, they want to sell everything as soon as possible (I've been told that Isla Canela showed interest in running the golf course, but the new owners want to sell, probably seeking to earn a big amount of money in the operation)

Hope this helps.

Luz liver

This is the problem I have with all this. There is NO WINNER. The clubhouse will have far less customers without golfers. The golf course will be unsellable within weeks, or at the very least worth considerably less. The residents of Costa Esuri lose one of the very few assets we have.

If you were to try to sell this story as the plot of a book, film or TV program it would be rejected as too far fetched.

Let's see what nonsense the mayor comes up with later.

keithBT

The clubhouse will not do enough business to sustain a profit without the golfers. We'll be lucky if it lasts a month I regret !!

shirley and anthony hide

The 5 year contract runs out in October anyway , so summer months can still make money IF run properly,But come Autumn ,no snowbirds from Scandinavia etc can't see it being viable and option taken up.
Mind you if someone wants to run it as a PROPER restaurant with good lunch and evening menu , There is still a captive population there with no need for a designated driver!. And no problems with denunciations that Hole 19 encountered for example.

keithBT

I did a search on Baranda Azul SL and apparently two Lebenese businessmen represented by an Ayamontino architect bought the Los Regustos & Los Botones Farms in 1989 adjoining the rio guadiana.( Now CE). In June 1990 a holding company was renamed Baranda Azul SL and signs an agreement with the town hall to develop 430 hectares of rustic land This was then sold to Fadesa in 2002 as urban land and after much disagreement with the permissions from rustic to urban Fadesa got the permissions in 2004. In 2005 they got another 300 hectares requalified from rustic to Urban land. ( More brown envelopes ?). I've been unable to establish whether Fadesa just bought the land or bought the entire company of Baranda Azul SL, but they've been around for almost 30 years now. As usual its all very fishy. I think you would need to be a Spanish financial forensic detective to get to the bottom of it. I doubt we will ever find out the truth behind this mess !

Jon-Bxl

I remember when Gavin an experienced restauranteur, surveyed the clubhouse kitchen, as part of a possible business opportunity, he told me that it was the best professional kitchen in the area... Good for a large resto clientèle

If none of the original equipment has been stripped from the various managers, then this is a good idea in theory. Seeing how full 19h and Jags were with an on going GC as competition I see this as a valid option.

But I doubt Javier wants the hassle or risk to make it happen and then shut up in October. Proper chefs may be hard to find also... But good idea

Jon