Balsillie-owned golf venture partners with Saudi developer to build Middle East luxury resorts
GolfNorth International Inc., a Canadian golf and resort management company owned by former BlackBerry Ltd. co-CEO Jim Balsillie , is launching its first venture outside Canada as it partners with a leading Saudi Arabia real estate developer and investor to build a series of luxury golf courses and resorts in the Middle East.
GolfNorth and Sumou Global Investment planning development projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East and North Africa that will include villas and residences, golf courses, hotels, wellness retreats and lifestyle amenities.
The joint venture is set to break ground this year on projects in three major Saudi Arabian cities — Riyadh, Jeddah and Al Khobar — with phased openings starting in 2027.
Attracting international investment is one of the pillars of Saudi Vision 2030, a long-term government program aimed at diversifying country’s economy beyond oil production and introducing social and cultural reforms.
“In line with Vision 2030, our partnership aims to position the Kingdom as a global hub for lifestyle, tourism and real estate innovation,” Abdulrahman Ayedh Al-Qahtani, chief executive of Sumou Global Investment, said in a release.
Saudi Arabia represents a “new frontier” for global tourism and sports, said Shawn Evans, chief executive of GolfNorth.
“It probably represents the most untapped golf market in the world,” he said.
Saudi Arabia’s population is only slightly smaller than Canada’s — about 5.5 million fewer people — but Evans said the country has just a fraction of Canada’s more than 2,000 golf courses.
“Saudi Arabia is a very large country as far as area goes. There’s lots of real estate available and it’s a very business friendly environment that invites foreign investment. These are some of the primary reasons why we were drawn there,” said Evans.
GolfNorth will take the lead on designing, operating and maintaining the project’s golf courses, with a focus on “sustainable practices including water conservation and ecological balance,” according to the release.
Founded in 1994, GolfNorth is privately owned and currently operates 43 golf courses in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia. The company also offers a proprietary operations service platform for golf courses and resorts called Tee-On.
While GolfNorth has primarily focused on buying and renovating existing golf courses in Canada, the company is currently building a new 18-hole golf course in Fergus, Ont., designed by prominent golf architect Doug Carrick of Carrick Design.
With the current political climate influencing many Canadian companies to diversify their business away from the U.S., Evans said he considers the new venture a Canadian success story.
“I think it’s indicative of what Canadian companies can do when they’re not reliant on the U.S. market, particularly right now with everything that’s going on in the world,” he said. “We see this as an opportunity to expand beyond Canada’s borders and not be reliant on the U.S. specifically.”
• Email: jswitzer@postmedia.com
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