Atlantis owners plan to take company private (Dubai holds 12% stake)

[seafan]

This was in the Miami Herald on March 21, 2006.

Atlantis owners plan to take company private

The Kerzner family, best known for building the grandiose Atlantis hotel and casino into the Bahamas' signature resort, wants to take its company private in a $3.6 billion deal with investors that include the Related Cos. of New York and the Dubai government.

Kerzner International is in the midst of a building spree as it prepares to expand the Atlantis brand to the Middle East.

snip

For their buyout team, the Kerzners assembled companies and lenders that have done business with Kerzner International.

Related Cos. Chairman Stephen Ross sits on Kerzner's board. (The Related Group of Florida is an affiliate of the New York-based company.) The Dubai royal family acquired a 12 percent stake in Kerzner International after signing the company to build a $1.1 billion Atlantis on a new island off the United Arab Emirates state.

Dubai's stake in Kerzner attracted attention recently when another Dubai-controlled entity tried to buy operations in some U.S. ports, including Miami's.

snip

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14146635.htm

Looks like this fits right in with the mega development going on in Dubai lately, like SkiDubai, a mammoth indoor winter ski resort in the desert, that has recently opened. It was envisioned by developer Majid al-Futtaim, as part of the Mall of the Emirates, which will be or is already the third largest shopping center on the planet.


Anyway, back to the original piece about the upcoming privatization plan for Kerzner International....

There are some quite interesting linkages among entities and people associated with Kerzner.

Steve Ross, chairman and CEO, The Related Cos. Often people stand out in just one aspect of real estate, whether it's financing, development, or operations. But Steve Ross shines in multiple areas. Ross created one of the largest financiers of debt and equity for affordable housing in the country, and he is one of the largest developers of condos in the country. Ross owns 19 percent of CharterMac, which has more than $19 billion of assets under management. The Related portfolio includes more than $8 billion worth of developments. Ross' projects cover all ends of the spectrum, from financing affordable developments to building the $2 billion Time Warner Center in New York. "The breadth of his reach is quite extraordinary," says Andrew Farkas, a Ross friend and colleague and chief executive of Island Capital.

http://www.multifamilyexecutive.com/industry-news-print.asp?sectionID=0&articleID=240376

OK, he's a mega condo and "affordable housing" giant. So when the original article above referred to The Related Group of Florida as an affiliate of Related Cos. of New York, I decided to take a look:

The Related Group of Florida Founded in 1979, The Related Group of Florida builds and manages multi-family housing and mixed-use development in South Florida. Over the past 35 years, the company has built and managed more than 50,000 units, and its current portfolio of more than $6 billion in assets generates annual revenues of more than $2 billion. Founder and Chairman Jorge M. Pérez is a member of organizations including the Miami Downtown Development Authority, the University of Miami Board of Trustees, and the Union Planters Bank/Regions Financial Board of Directors.

http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?id=19484

So Jorge M. Perez is the chairman and CEO of The Related Group of Florida.

Jorge Perez is on an incredible run.

In 2005, he was listed as one of only several from the construction and development fields on Forbes magazine's most recent list of the richest Americans, Time ranked him as one of the 25 most influential Hispanics in the U.S. and Hispanic Business magazine ranked The Related Group of Florida as the largest Hispanic-owned company in the country, with reportedly more than $2 billion in sales in 2004.

And now the South Florida "king of condos" is looking to expand his empire, with huge developments under way in Las Vegas and plans for others in Atlanta and elsewhere.

Indeed, the CEO of The Related Group of Florida may be on the cusp of proving himself - and his multifamily and mixed-use development company - to be a worthy successor to other great Florida builders before him, such as Henry Flagler or Walt Disney.

Instead of his legacy, though, Perez seems more focused on future opportunities, which may include even pricier developments but also some "affordable" or workforce housing for an increasingly squeezed-out middle class.

"I really love creating cities," Perez said.

snip

Perez, who started out building affordable housing, is arguably one of the greatest beneficiaries of the booming luxury market. But he still sees the lack of affordable housing as the top issue for cities moving forward - and perhaps another growing market for Related.

"That might be the single-biggest issue facing cities today - how do we provide housing for workers?" he said. "Cities are becoming the places for either the very poor, who get their rent subsidized, or the very rich. Few people can really afford $500,000 to $5 million condominiums So, are we defeating the purposes of cities? Because if you can't afford (to live downtown), you're not going to be close to your employment."

Perez said Related is working with different cities on affordability programs to fill the market gap.

snip

"We need to continue to work with government to find those alternatives that will make some of this housing available to the working folks," he added. "Affordable housing is really disappearing, and we are going to have a major problem. Prices have just driven up to the point where the middle class is just totally cut out of the housing market."

http://www.construction.com/NewsCenter/Headlines/RP/20060209se.asp

And, most interestingly, Jorge Perez is a "sometimes business partner" of Armando Codina. “What always strikes me about Armando is – and a lot of people talk about this but he lives it – is that his family is such an overriding concern for him,” says friend and sometimes business partner Jorge Perez.


And guess who Armando Codina, the CEO of the Codina Group, hired in 1980 to work in his newly formed real estate firm..... Jeb Bush. According to Codina, he hired Jeb at the request of his father George Bush. And the rest is history, to borrow a worn phrase.


Another point of interest about Codina:

In another case that got little publicity, Codina three years ago “adopted” Bent Tree Elementary School, then a “D” level public school. The program, part of the South Florida Annenberg Challenge, teams a CEO with a principal and education coach to infuse business strategies into school operations; it also requires a $100,000 donation from the CEO. Today Bent Tree is an “A” rated school.
“I went to the school and saw how the kids were at a high disadvantage, vis-à-vis kids that go to Gables or Pinecrest,” says Codina. “So I got them a computer lab, and got the kids and the parents to use it. Now, that’s something I enjoy quietly, with not a lot of hullabaloo.”

http://www.southfloridaceo.com/archives/2004_Issues/JAN%202004/Pages/COVER_STORY.html

Is this former business partner of Jeb's acting as a consultant for what we've seen during the past 8-year reign of the self-proclaimed "education governor"? Something to ponder. Maybe Neil got the idea of Ignite! from Armando.



In case anyone is still with me here, Jeb! is freshly back from the Bahamas, pushing his new "Global Florida--Classroom Connections", a technologically-based, interactive educational opportunity for the schools in the Bahamas, to come online in the spring of 2006.


And this brings the discussion back full circle to the likely increasing stake in Bahamas-based Kerzner International by the government of Dubai, UAE, to continue unbridled development globally.

Oh, did I mention that Dubai funds Neil Bush's interactive educational software company, Ignite!?

[crikkett]

1. K&R - worth the read

great post - thanks