You might have heard all of the rumors over the past many months, but the potential purchase of the Sandestin Golf & Beach Resort took a major step forward with the signing of a definitive agreement between Intrawest and the Becnel family. This is potentially good news because there were recent reports that Intrawest missed a large payment to their lenders in late December and there are rumors that the worldwide assets of Intrawest would be auctioned in the near term. This was denied by the senior management in Vancouver. Here's a recent article by Bloomberg.com and the initial breaking story by the nwfdailynews. The expected close date is sometime in early March. The negotiations between Fortress/Intrawest and the Becnel family took just over a year because of the complexity of

the operations and the need to do extensive financial and property due diligence. The Becnel family is well known locally and have built several developments over the years including Silver Shells and One Beach Club in Sandestin. Most of the assets in Sandestin are expected to be included in the sale except for the Market Shops and the commercial interests in the Village at Baytowne. The assets expected to be included are the: 4 golf courses and club houses, vacation rental management, conference business, tennis and beach clubs, finz, marina, undeveloped land, the real estate brokerage, and a couple of outside rental management contracts. Kent Lillie, the outgoing president of the Sandestin Owners Association, sat down recently with Mr. Becnel. You can read a transcript of the interview