Business life: My finance news blog

Owners of a Marion, Ill., golf club late last week finally got their long-awaited sit-down with U.S. Treasury officials to ask the agency to drop its objections to the club’s sale.

But Treasury did not indicate what action it might take or give a timetable, said Fritz Archerd, head of the golf owner’s group, who attended the meeting.

"There’s reason for hope. But there’s also reason for pessimism," Archerd said.

For the past 15 months, the Treasury has blocked the sale of the Kokopelli Golf Course because of the involvement of Zimbabwean national John A. Bredenkamp. He led a group that owned the golf course from 2001 to 2006. He retained a right to future profits when the course was sold again.

The problem is that Bredenkamp was named in late 2008 by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control to a list of people targeted for economic sanctions. These specially designated nationals, which include al-Qaida terrorists and drug kingpins, are prohibited from conducting any business in the U.S.

Treasury, which has declined to comment on the proceedings, accuses Bredenkamp of "gray-market arms trading and trafficking" and other endeavors to prop up Zimbabwe’s ruling regime.

Archerd said the Kokopelli investment lost about $750,000. A purchase price expected to be about $1 million would be enough to recoup that investment and pay off debt. So no profit would head to Bredenkamp if the golf club were sold to Marion-area owners quick payday loans.

Archerd said his group could no longer afford to invest in the golf club, featuring an 18-hole championship course once voted No. 3 in Illinois by Golf Week magazine. And yet, they cannot sell the course. It’s not even clear if the bank could foreclose on the property with the Treasury’s blocking order.

The plight of this golf course was the subject of a Post-Dispatch article last Sunday.

An economic sanctions attorney not involved in the case said he was surprised Treasury did not offer a solution at the sit-down meeting.

"I don’t understand why this hasn’t moved forward," said Clif Burns with Bryan Cave in Washington.

After Archerd’s meeting, the potential buyers indicated they had lost patience. Marion-area restaurateur David Hays said in a release, "We no longer are optimistic that we will see a timely solution to this dilemma."

Time — and money — does appear to be running out for Kokopelli. Staff already has been cut from 75 to one. The lawnmowers were repossessed last week, so there is no way to maintain fairways and greens. And next week the power company plans to turn out the lights.

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