(ORLANDO, FL) -- Tavistock Group, an Orlando-based investment and development organization funded by London-born billionaire Joe Lewis, knows a bargain when it sees one.
Please see related Real Estate Channel postings
- Orlando's $100 Million Vue Luxury Condo Tower Goes on Auction Block March 15th, Jan. 7, 2010
- US Condo Roundup: Orlando's Vue Awaits Bankruptcy Ruling, Oct. 14, 2009
Tavistock is offering $21 million for 165 unsold luxury condominiums at The Vue, a two-year-old, 36-story, 375-unit Downtown tower built in 2007.
Up for auction Monday, Mar. 15, along with the condos, is a total 7,972 square feet of retail space in the building at 150 E. Robinson St.
Based on the condos themselves, the Tavistock offer equates to about $127,272 per unit. The units were initially listed by owner The Vue Orlando LLC at pre-construction prices ranging from $300,000 to $3 million.
Nine bidders, including Tavistock and Blue Key Investments LLC of Lake Worth, FL, have each submitted $1 million deposits to the auctioneer, Fisher Auction Co. of Pompano Beach, FL.
Janne Keskinen, a Finnish real estate investor who has a residence in Lake Worth, is the point man for Blue Key investors, most of whom are Europeans.
In November 2009, The Vue's creditors had their involuntary Chapter 7 liquidation status, filed in October, converted to a Chapter 11 reorganization by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Orlando.
R. Scott Shuker of Orlando law firm Latham, Shuker, Eden & Beaudine LLP, representing The Vue's owner, confirms the creditors have agreed to lend the owner another $1.4 million to continue operating through the bankruptcy proceedings.
According to court filings, The Vue Orlando LLC owes $53 million through a single mortgage note shared by Sovereign Bank, Comerica Bank, Mega International Commercial Bank Co., Charter One Bank NA, Great American Insurance Co. and Great American Financial Resources Inc.
Churchill Development Group LLC of Rockville, MD and Westminster Partners LLC of Lake Forest, IL jointly developed The Vue.
Lewis is the 261st richest person on Forbes' The World's Richest People list 2009. He was listed as the 16th richest British person in the London Sunday Times Rich List 2007.
Lewis was in the news on September 2007 for having paid $860.4 million in an all-cash purchase of a 7% stake in Wall Street Investment Bear Stearns.
By December 2007, Lewis had raised his stake in the New York City-based brokerage firm to 9.4%, a total of 11 million shares, for which he paid an average price of $107 per share before its September 2008 collapse 10 months later.
He is more recently known for spear-heading a £70 million ($106 million US) investment in Bulgarian property development.
Lewis is the majority shareholder of British Pub group Mitchells & Butlers, controlling 23% of the issued share capital.
When he isn't residing at his Isleworth community mansion in south Orlando, Lewis lives in the Bahamas at Lyford Cay. He is 73.
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