Concert Golf Partners in Newport Beach bought Crestview Country Club in Wichita, Kan., on undisclosed terms.
It typically buys properties in the $4 million to $10 million range and now owns and operates 13 private golf clubs under two investment funds totaling about $150 million.
It plans to buy seven to nine more facilities, according to Managing Partner Peter Nanula, including Norbeck Country Club in Rockville, Md., that’s scheduled to close in July.
Concert buys or recapitalizes older country clubs that have debt or need renovation.
Crestview is 95 years old.
“We’re paying off the debt and funding capital improvements,” Nanula said.
He said Concert also eliminated assessments at Crestview, which are payments commonly added to members’ costs above their membership dues at private clubs.
“Private clubs are a multi-million dollar hospitality business and members don’t want to be running them part-time and not-for-profit,” Nanula said. “It’s good to be debt-free.”
Nanula led Arnold Palmer Golf Management in the 1990s, which grew to some 30 golf clubs—including Strawberry Farms in Irvine—and more than $100 million in revenue before the courses were sold in the early 2000s.
