For Intrawest Golf, the nation’s seventh-largest golf course management company, rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated. At the same time, the Scottsdale-based company will undergo a considerable down-sizing of staff, with several of its high-end properties, including the Raven at South Mountain, up for sale.
Jim McLaughlin, the senior vice president of Intrawest Golf, said his company is “going in a different direction.’’
“The old team is breaking up, but Intrawest Golf is not breaking up,’’ McLaughlin said. “Some of our 34 golf properties are going away, and we’re, for the most part, getting out of third-party management contracts.
“But we will retain our golf properties tied to resorts, or Intrawest lodging.’’
Intrawest Golf is an arm of Canadian-based Intrawest, a $2 billion-a-year company that owns or manages 12 major ski/golf resorts and other upscale lodging and real estate throughout the U.S. and Canada. Intrawest Golf represents less than two percent of Intrawest’s revenues.
“Our focus will now be golf as it relates to our resorts and lodging,’’ said McLaughlin. “Even though we just came off our best year ever at Intrawest Golf, our accountants pointed out that you just don’t make a lot of dough in golf these days.
“Still, to change directions, it was difficult.’’
McLaughlin said that when all is said and done, he expects 14 or 15 of Intrawest Golf’s 34 courses to stay on board. He also said that 1,100 employees have been notified that some might lose their jobs in the coming year. He expects the payroll to be trimmed by 300 to 400 employees “if it all transitions.’’
Already, one of Intrawest Golf’s vice presidents, Kirk Kokoska, has left the company to head up one of the spin-offs -- “Shea Golf.’’
“The name of the new golf management team for Shea Homes is not official yet, but we’re calling it Shea Golf for the moment, and Kirk will head up that team,’’ McLaughlin said. “And that’s eight of our courses, of which Shea Golf will begin managing as of Jan. 1 (2006).’’
They include the Trilogy at Power Ranch and Seville Country Club in Gilbert, and the Trilogy at Vistancia and the new Blackrock Golf Club in Peoria. There also are three Trilogy golf clubs in California, and one in Washington.
The six properties being sold by Intrawest Golf include the aforementioned Raven at South Mountain, the Raven at Three Peaks in Silver Thorne, Colo., the Raven at Lora Bay near Toronto, Big Island Country Club in Hawaii, Swan-e-set Golf Club in Pitt Meadows, British Columbia, and the Raven at Cabo San Lucas, which already has been sold.
Even though several industries sources told The Tribune that the Raven at South Mountain is carrying an $11 million price tag, McLaughlin denied it.
“It’s got great value, which is why we’ve got a list (of potential buyers) with about 50 names parked on it,’’ he said. “We’d like to find a buyer who would keep it in the Raven mix. . . .
“Hopefully, we’ll sell all of the stand-alone properties within a year, but it’s not a fire sale.’’
As for the Raven at Verrado in Buckeye, McLaughlin said that will continue to carry the Raven name and belong to Scottsdale-based DMB Development.
“Verrado stays because we’re building 700 lodging units there,’’ he said of the resort that has yet to be named.
Among the other 14 courses labeled “keepers’’ are golf properties at Whistler at Black Comb, the Raven at Sandestin in Florida, Copper Mountain and Winter Park in Colorado, Mammoth Mountain in California, Mount Tremblant in Canada, Stratton Mountain in Vermont and Snowshoe in West Virginia.
There will be other Raven golf clubs in the future all tied to lodging, he added, chiefly because the Raven brand is trademarked and owned by Intrawest Golf.
So why break up the portfolio now?
“A whole bunch of things, the biggest being we took a $17.5 million write-down in terms of the asset values of our golf properties last year,’’ McLaughlin said. “Some of golf makes money, but it doesn’t make the kind of money that other Intrawest assets make.’’
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