Who is the Pebble Beach company?

The question about who owns the Pebble Beach Golf Course is a complicated one. The answer spans over four decades with the formation of the Pebble Beach Company. It involves various big pockets as far east as Japan and as far west as Hollywood.

According to the Pebble Beach website, Samuel Morse, a distant cousin of the inventor of the telegraph, founded the company and course in 1919. By the time of his death in 1969, the company was known as the Del Monte Properties Company.

It’s at this point Hollywood stepped up the plate with an almost literally galactic offer.

On March 30, 1977, Del Monte Properties Company reincorporated as Pebble Beach Corporation. Twentieth Century-Fox used its profits from its film Star Wars to buy Pebble Beach Corporation in May 1979. During this era, Marvin Davis (after purchasing Twentieth Century-Fox) completed development of The Inn & Links at Spanish Bay.

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1972 U.S. Open Film: Jack and Pebble BeachEleven years after winning the U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach (Calif.) Golf Links, Jack Nicklaus won the first U.S. Open contested there. The original film, narrated by Chris Schenkel. For more from the 2019 U.S. Open Championship, visit usopen.com.2019-05-27T15:12:32.000Z

After this, ownership transitioned to Japanese real estate developer Minoru Isutani in 1990. According to the Chicago Tribune in June 1996, he was forced to sell at a big loss due to the American economic downturn of the early 1990s. It was at a time where several Japanese businessmen were trying to write off major investment losses.

In 1990, he bought the California championship golf course for $841 million. Isutani sold the property about 18 months later to two Japanese companies at a $340 million loss.

By 1999, Southern California stepped up to the plate for ownership. Hollywood actor/director Clint Eastwood, 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Chairman Peter Ueberroth, as well as golfer Arnold Palmer and others purchased the course for $820 million.

Pebble Beach, the host of this week’s U.S. Open, is not for sale—thanks to an $820 million deal involving Clint Eastwood and Arnold Palmer https://t.co/5sxiwLKOI2

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) June 10, 2019

Per the Monterey County Weekly, the goal of the new ownership group was about course and resort improvement over strictly profit.

Eastwood himself said in a KSBW television interview that he and his partners didn”t buy Pebble Beach to make a profit. Even so, one wonders just how philanthropic actuaries and loan analysts at GE Pension Trust and Bank of America–which are participating in the purchase and financing–will remain. Aren”t their investors expecting a return on the loan or investment in Pebble Beach?

Although planned projects–including the Casa Palmero spa next to The Lodge at Pebble Beach, a proposed new golf course and the sale of 300 lots and condos if approved–will help increase the company”s annual cash flow to about $180 million, it”s still not enough to justify an $820 million price tag.

The Pebble Beach website states that their plan upon the initial investment was to “never again sell Pebble Beach Company to another ownership group.” While Eastwood hasn’t sold his share, he has sold his Pebble Beach estate, according to Golfworld.

Then there is this, Hacienda Este Madera, that is for sale in Pebble Beach, its list price $9.75 million. A loose translation for Hacienda Este Madera is the giveaway: House East Wood.

Yes, it belongs to Clint Eastwood, a long-time resident of the area and chairman of the Monterey Peninsula Foundation and next week’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

When not directing movies, Eastwood still makes frequent appearances at the Pro-Am, which still takes place at Pebble Beach and always attracts celebrities.

An investment group that includes actor Clint Eastwood, golf master Arnold Palmer and former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth on Thursday announced they have agreed to acquire the legendary Pebble Beach golf resort near Monterey for $820 million.

The sale will end nearly a decade of Japanese ownership of Pebble Beach, which became a symbol of the exorbitant prices paid and, subsequently, the massive losses suffered by Japanese investors who flooded into U.S. real estate during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

“We think it’s the best golfing place on the globe,” said Ueberroth, who began negotiations to purchase the property in March. “I’ve been lucky enough to have played there over the last 40 years.”

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The purchase of Pebble Beach Co. includes the Pebble Beach Golf Links and three other nearby courses; two luxury hotels, the Lodge at Pebble Beach and the Inn at Spanish Bay; and 17-Mile Drive, a popular tourist destination.

Pebble Beach Co. is owned by a partnership between Taiheiyo Club Inc., a Japanese golf resort company, and Sumitomo Credit Services Co., one of Japan’s largest issuers of Visa cards. The partnership purchased Pebble Beach in 1992 from golf tycoon Minoru Isutani, who bought the company only two years earlier from a group headed by oilman Marvin Davis. However, the debt-ridden Isutani was forced to sell the property at an estimated $350-million loss.

Taiheiyo Club will maintain a close relationship with the resort following the sale, according to Pebble Beach Co.

The new owners, who also include Richard Ferris, the former chief executive of United Airlines, have no plans to change the operating philosophy of Pebble Beach, according to a company statement. However, the group will identify “other business opportunities” to pursue. The purchase will be financed by Bank of America.

In addition, the investors said they intend to complete the company’s Del Monte Forest Plan, which will develop a new golf course and more than 300 home sites on the 5,300-acre Pebble Beach site.

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