A planned membership buyout of the island-based Waterford Castle Golf Club has been frustrated by a last-minute deal negotiated by a private business consortium to buy the entire island.
The 575 club members had put together a share-purchase scheme to finance the acquisition of the club from its owners, Smurfit Ireland, for £2 million.
But when their representatives travelled to Dublin earlier this week to lodge a £200,000 deposit and sign contracts, they learned a deal had been agreed over the weekend to sell the 311-acre island to a group of four businessmen from Cork and Tipperary.
The consortium is understood to have come forward with an offer of about £5 million to buy the island, which includes the golf course and the 19-bedroom Waterford Castle Hotel.
The major stakeholder in the hotel and some 60 acres of island land is businessman Mr Eddie Kearns. He is believed to have availed of a joint marketing agreement set up between him and Smurfit in 1996 under which the combined properties have been on the market since then at a target price of £6 million.
Club members learned just over three weeks ago that Smurfit had a potential buyer for the golf club on its own, and they immediately sought and received the company's agreement to a 21-day deferral of its sale while they assembled a firm offer of their own.
Their spokesmen sharply criticised voiced sharp criticism of Smurfits following the revelation that their project had been leapfrogged by the weekend developments.
But a Smurfit spokesperson said the company had been constrained by the prior legal agreement with Mr Kearns from doing a deal with the membership.
The club committee had been aware of the existence of this agreement, the spokesperson claimed, adding that it was understood the new buyers have offered to sell the course and the clubhouse to the members for a lesser sum than they would have had to pay Smurfit.
The club captain, Mr Tom Drohan, said yesterday his committee was unaware of any such offer. "Until such time as Smurfit tell us that they are no longer the owners of Waterford Castle Golf Club our mandate is to deal with Smurfit regarding the purchase of the club," he said. "They have not yet told us it's not theirs, and until such time as they do, we can't deal with a third party."
He added that the contract they had received for consideration and on which their offer was based had not indicated that another party retained the right to sell the island. "It is unbelievable that an organisation such as Smurfit would buy a golf club and agree that it could be sold at any time by the original seller and not by them," he said.
It is understood that, for its property interests on the island, Smurfit will be entitled to receive 40 per cent of the purchase price to be paid by the new consortium.