Taupo, New Zealand
BUYER: Undisclosed
SELLER: Hanover Group
PRICE: $50-55 million (est)
The purchase, by an unidentified domestic buyer, included a Jack Nicklaus-designed course and clubhouse, along with 68 residential units, a lodge-hotel site, residential clubhouse and 50-unit villa complex. Hanover Group had financed the development of the 345-hectare golf resort. The buyer reportedly plans to continue work on the property. The course, which cost an estimated $16 million to build, had opened in March 2007, however, the project subsequently had run into financial difficulty and the developer was unable to complete the work. Less than a quarter of the 176 lakeside lots in the project had been sold.