Elan founder sells golf stake

Domonic Walsh, The Times, 17 September 2004

Don Panoz, multimillionaire founder of Elan Corporation, the Irish pharmaceuticals company, has sold a 50 per cent stake in St Andrews Bay, his Scottish golf resort, The Times has learnt.

Dr Panoz, who spent £58 million developing the controversial resort on the outskirts of the home of golf, has made Henk Evers, his president and chief executive, a partner in the business as part of a refinancing of the entrepreneur’s leisure interests.

Mr Evers, who has worked for Dr Panoz for a decade, confirmed to The Times last night that he had bought a 50 per cent stake in the St Andrews Bay resort and Château Élan, a winery and golf resort in Atlanta, Georgia. The deal does not include Dr Panoz’s two other hotels, in California and Florida.

Mr Evers described the transaction as a “$100 million deal” - equivalent to about £56 million - but refused to elaborate on the specific terms or to quantify how much he had put in.

He strongly denied rumours that the refinancing had been driven by the need to shore up the company’s finances, although he admitted that the timing of the opening of St Andrews Bay just before the September 11 attacks had not been ideal. “St Andrews will break even this year after debt service payments, which is a fantastic performance, given the economic and political backdrop,” he said.

Mr Evers said that the opportunity to become a partner had come from Dr Panoz and his wife, Nancy. “Don turns 70 in February and he said to me ‘The clock doesn’t lie’. I’ve worked for him and Nancy for ten years. I built St Andrews Bay and an extension at Château Élan. Rather than selling to an outsider, who would do heaven knows what with the hotels, he decided to sell part of the business to me.”

Mr Evers added: “It creates a stronger balance sheet and generates continuity in the company.”

Dr Panoz came up with the idea for St Andrews Bay after a trip to the area in the early 1990s. Despite local opposition to the scheme and going over the original budget, it finally opened its doors in June 2001, with 209 rooms, a 25,000 sq ft conference centre - Scotland’s biggest hotel conference centre - and two championship golf courses.

The entrepreneur is best known for developing the nicotine patch during his time at Elan Corporation, although ironically Dr Panoz himself, who is still a smoker, is allergic to it.

He left Elan in 1996, well before the accounting scandal that engulfed the company two years ago.