Paulson-led owners put Doral golf resort for sale

The owners of several iconic luxury resorts mired in bankruptcy are moving to sell one of Florida's most well-known golf clubs: Miami's Doral Golf Resort & Spa, host to an annual World Golf Championships tournament. The resorts' owners, a Paulson & Co.-led investment group known as CNL-AB, said in court papers filed Monday that a sale of the Doral would generate needed cash while having little negative impact on the investment group's bottom line. The resort investors have hired real-estate broker Hodges Ward Elliott Inc. to market Doral, home to the "Blue Monster" course, a staple on the pro-golf tour for nearly a half century. A sale of Doral will permit the resorts "to reduce their funded debt obligations and better position the enterprise to exit from Chapter 11," the ownership group said in papers filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy court in Manhattan. The ownership group, led by John Paulson's hedge-fund firm, placed Doral and four other resorts--including the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix and Hawaii's Grand Wailea Resort--into bankruptcy in February shortly after acquiring them through a foreclosure proceeding. CNL-AB and three other resorts it owns are not part of the bankruptcy case. The ownership group says a sale of Doral makes sense because the resort is at a "strategic crossroads." Currently, Doral generates less operating income as a percentage of its asset value compared to the other resorts and is in need of additional capital investments to allow it to remain competitive in the luxury golf market.