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Selling a world class equestrian centre
Boneo Park, located in Victoria’s iconic Mornington Peninsula, is one of Australia’s premier equestrian events facilities hosting world cup events. Within the park, which has a total land parcel of 318 hectares, included pristine wetlands and the largest privately owned Moonah tree woodland in Australia.
The park’s exceptional infrastructure included a recently built restaurant, two commercial kitchens, 194 powered campsites, stables, an amenities block, various indoor and outdoor arenas and an office and administrative building.
Following a global marketing campaign, Nash Advisory sold Boneo Park to the Solomon family who are going to continue to operate the equestrian facility and expand its overall offering.
Leisure
The McNaught family originally founded Boneo Park in 2004 when it acquired the land holding which was then used for farming. The wetlands, which are located at the heart of the property, were in very poor condition when the McNaught’s purchased the property. Over a period of 10 years, they set about painstakingly restoring the wetlands back to its natural form which is now enjoyed by thousands of natural enthusiast and bird watchers every year.
During the restoration, the areas surrounding the wetlands were transformed into an equestrian facility which included stables and arenas. As Boneo Park started to host larger events and more prestigious carnivals, the facility was expanded to include powered caravan sites, a restaurant, and a huge indoor arena.
With the expansion and popularity of Boneo Park ever increasing, along with the founder and General Manager Fiona Selby looking to step back her involvement to focus more time with her family and competing at the next Olympics in equestrian, the McNaught family decided to engage Nash Advisory to find a suitable buyer that could continue the success of the facility.
Due to the unique aspects of the land parcel, which included a number of easements and green wedge zones, Nash Advisory engaged specialist property consultants Tract to conduct a detailed review of the land, which included investigating alternative uses for the available area. This work front ended a lot of the property due diligence so that potential buyers were able to get a very clear understanding of the development potential of the land upfront. This enable us to refine the buyer pool quickly and only target those that had interests in acquiring a business with freehold land that had certain restrictions over future use and development.
Utilizing our international network, Nash Advisory engaged in a highly targeted marketing campaign that focused on potential buyers from around the world. Meetings were held with buyers in China, the United Kingdom, Spain and the US, among others. In the end, a local party that had intimate knowledge of the facility became the successful bidder.
The sheer size of the land parcel at Boneo Park provided possibilities for a number of alternative uses (in additional to the equestrian events business) and additional business opportunities which were identified from the Tract property due diligence report. These business ventures included increasing the caravan park capacity to convert it to a standalone accommodation resort precinct (with premium cabin accommodation located close to the wetlands), golf driving range, develop a portion of the land for industrial leasehold and use of the existing indoor and outdoor arenas to host festivals and concerts. Each one of these ventures needed to be assessed as a standalone enterprise which required detailed modelling which was provided to the buyers so that they could properly review each opportunity.
The business was significantly impacted during COVID and had not been able to achieve the high performance levels set in 2019 which was a record year. The McNaught family had made the decision to wind the business down to make it more manageable to operate. As part of our due diligence process, we undertook a rigorous assessment of what the equestrian business could generate (in terms of revenue and profit) under different ownership, more focused on profit generation and return. This required detailed financial modelling and a new business case for the equestrian business which was provided to prospective buyers.
Engagement started and initial due diligence proceeds.
Tract property consultants engaged to begin detailed assessment of the land parcel.
Information memorandum produced and sent to prospective buyers.
Initial offers received and reviewed, f inal offer agreed and signed.
Due diligence concludes.
Signing and deposit paid.
Transaction completion.
When it comes to selling your business, Nash Advisory offers a highly detailed and extremely thorough process that produces the best possible results.
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