New Buyer for Tamflats

[GlimmerIII]

We will know more in the am.


http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/1...intent-to.html

[TBS]

Can't divulge the basis for my opinion, but I really doubt these guys have the horsepower to pull this deal off...

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/1...an-to-buy.html
November 23, 2010
Eagle man announces plan to buy Tamarack
Resort’s co-owner says he was told about the offer minutes before a news conference
BY JOE ESTRELLA - jestrella@idahostatesman.com
Copyright: © 2010 Idaho Statesman
Resort’s co-owner says he was told about the offer minutes before a news conference
Is this a viable offer for Tamarack Resort?

That was the question raised Monday when an Eagle man who runs a business helping small companies with their 401(k) plans said a new company he co-founded would make a $40 million offer to buy the bankrupt resort near Donnelly.

Matthew D. Hutcheson called a news conference at a Boise restaurant to announce the proposed acquisition by the new company, Green Valley Holdings LLC. He said the financing was committed but wouldn’t say where the money would come from.

Tamarack co-owner Jean Pierre Boespflug dismissed Hutcheson’s announcement as “premature” and an “uninspired circus.” Boespflug said he had an initial conversation with Green Valley Holdings eight weeks ago but had been unable to contact the company since.

Tim Flaherty, executive director of the Tamarack Municipal Association, which recently joined Credit Suisse in paying off the resort’s overdue lease payments, said: “We’re just excited that a qualified buyer has stepped forward.”

Tamarack owes more than $300 million to creditors. The primary creditor, Swiss bank Credit Suisse, wants Boespflug and his partner removed and has proposed selling the resort’s assets in an attempt to recover at least a portion of the money owed.

Tamarack has been the subject of purchase talk before. A Utah real estate executive announced last year that he and other investors in a company called the Pelorus Group were offering $42 million for Tamarack. Those plans went nowhere, although Pelorus did purchase the Arling Center, Tamarack's conference center, for $900,000.

Boespflug told the Idaho Statesman that he and his attorney received Green Valley’s letter of intent by e-mail just six minutes before Monday’s 10 a.m. news conference was scheduled to begin.

“It was wrong for them to ambush me this way,” Boespflug said.

Hutcheson acknowledged that Green Valley also had not discussed its plans with Tamarack’s principal creditor, Zurich-based Credit Suisse, or with the Idaho Land Board, which holds the lease on the resort.

He said a letter of intent had been submitted to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court overseeing the shuttered facility and to Tamarack Resort LLC. The letter requires that the sale close before March 15, Hutcheson said.

No copy of a letter of intent could be found among Tamarack’s bankruptcy filings Monday.

A telephone number provided in a Green Valley press kit was continuously busy Monday. An Internet search for Green Valley Holdings revealed a website under construction.

A one-page news release said the principals in Green Valley include Larry, Scott and Rod Givens of Givens Construction, a home builder in Eagle. A message left Monday afternoon on Givens Construction’s answering machine was not immediately returned.

Hutcheson said the principals had no experience in running a ski resort but would bring in a team of real estate development professionals. He did not identify them.

Flaherty said the Tamarack Municipal Association, a homeowners group, met with Green Valley Holdings to brief it on plans for a 2010 ski season beginning next month. It would be the first skiing since March 2009, when lifts closed as financing dried up.

An article about Hutcheson in the Retirement Income Journal said Hutcheson has been called “the leader of (the) ‘independent fiduciary movement,’” helping to invent a field of third-party stewards who provide expert oversight to small 401(k) plans. The article credited Hutcheson with helping to launch an online 401(k) rating service and with ventures like a multi-employer 401(k) plan for small companies.

Joe Estrella: 377-6465