morocco Betting the Ranches

Gulf Finance House has revived another golf project.

In February 2012, the World Edition of the Golf Course Report reported that GFH plans to resume work on its Tunis Financial Harbour project in Tunisia. Now we’ve learned that the Bahrain-based investment bank intends to pick up where it left off with Royal Ranches Marrakech, its “flagship” project in Morocco.

Royal Ranches is an equestrian-focused community -- Morocco has deep historical ties to horses -- that will spread over 950 acres in suburban Marrakech. It’s been master-planned to consist of four “districts” with villas and apartments, two or more hotels, a convention center, and a shopping area designed to resemble a Moroccan souk. Its equestrian facilities will include several riding areas, stables for roughly 200 horses, a horse-breeding center, a polo field, veterinary offices, and a racing track with a climate-controlled grandstand.

GFH also plans to build an 18-hole golf course that’s been designed by Paul Albanese, an architect based in Plymouth, Michigan. Albanese, who apprenticed with Jerry Matthews, has designed one golf course in the United States, Sweetgrass Golf Club in Harris, Michigan, and these days he’s designing a course for an Indian tribe in Niobrara, Nebraska. His 7,000-yard track at Royal Ranches is scheduled to be built in the first phase of construction.

GFH announced Royal Ranches in 2006, when the Middle East was flush with oil money. The community’s development was interrupted by the global economic crisis, and some investors don’t believe GFH is yet out of the financial woods. “The company has burned through cash for the last two years,” an analyst from Exotix said earlier this year. “Cash flow is negative at the moment, and their ability to generate meaningful revenue is non-existent.”

That being said, GFH posted a meager profit in 2011, and work on Royal Ranches’ infrastructure was recently reported to be about half-finished.

The original version of this post appeared in the May 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.