Golfnorth International Inc., a Canadian golf and resort management company of the former Blackberry Ltd. Co-CEO Jim Balsillie, starts his first company outside of Canada because he works with a leading Saudi Arabia real estate developer and investor to build a number of luxury golf courses and resorts in the Middle East.
Golfnorth and Sumou Global Investment Planning Development Projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well as in the Middle East and North Africa, which will include villas and residential buildings, golf courses, hotels, wellness retreats and lifestyle applications.
This year, the joint venture will break on the ground in projects in three large Saudi Arabian cities – Riad, Jeddah and Al Khobar – with gradual openings in 2027.
The extraction of international investments is one of the pillars of the Saudi Vision 2030, a long -term government program that is aimed at diversifying the country's diversification, which goes beyond oil production and introduces social and cultural reforms.
“In accordance with Vision 2030, our partnership aims to position the kingdom as a global hub for lifestyle, tourism and real estate innovation,” said Abdulrahman Ayedh al-Qahtani, Managing Director of Sumou Global Investment.
Saudi Arabia is a “new border” for global tourism and sport, said Shawn Evans, Managing Director of Golfnorth.
“It is probably the most unused golf market in the world,” he said.
The population of Saudi Arabia is only slightly smaller than Canada -about 5.5 million less -but Evans said that the country has only a fraction of the more than 2,000 golf courses in Canada.
“Saudi Arabia is a very large country in terms of the area. There are many properties and it is a very business -friendly environment that invites foreign investments. These are some of the main reasons why we were drawn there,” said Evans.
Golfnorth will take over the project's golf courses for designing, operating and maintaining golf courses, whereby the focus is on “sustainable practices including water protection and ecological balance”.
Golfnorth was founded in 1994 and currently operates 43 golf courses in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia. The company also offers a proprietary operating service platform for golf courses and resorts called TEE-on.
While Golfnorth has primarily focused on the purchase and renovation of existing golf courses in Canada, the company is currently building a new 18-hole golf course in Fergus, Ontario, which was designed by the prominent golf architect Doug Carrick by Carrick Design.
With the current political climate that affects many Canadian companies to diversify their business from the USA, Evans sees the new company as a Canadian success story.
“I think it is an indication of what Canadian companies can do if they are not dependent on the US market, especially at the moment with everything that is going on in the world,” he said. “We see this as an opportunity to expand beyond the Canada borders and not be specifically dependent on the USA.”
• e -Mail: jswitzer@postmedia.com
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