BelleHavens, the membership-owned destination club, has announced its acquisition of Havens, a non-equity destination club that struggled over the past year.

About 40 Havens members will be joining BelleHavens as non-equity members with travel reservation rights and they have the opportunity to upgrade their membership to have the same ownership rights as other members. According to Darin Gilson, founder and CEO of BelleHavens, he made the move to accelerate his member growth, as well to blunt the potential impact of a failed club with a similar name.

Redemption Rights After 3 Years

Gilson (photo, right) explained in more detail how the deal will work.

The Havens members that join as non-equity members will get membership deposit redemption rights after three years on a three-in, one-out basis and as along as there is only one redemption per quarter. Frankly we think that this is a good offer from BelleHavens – even to offer redemption rights to members from another club.

According to Gilson, Havens members that elect to convert to a full BelleHavens equity membership will get a discount off the current equity pricing and 100% of those funds will be used to purchase debt-free property (which is how BelleHavens owns all of its real estate).

BelleHavens did not acquire much real estate as part of the deal. Havens had a couple of fractional interests in Telluride and Pinehurst and the rest of their residences was leased.

Helium Report Perspective

It’s a smart move for BelleHavens. The deal gets their luxury vacation club close to the first important growth milestone of 100 members and they will probably be able to upgrade some of the Havens members to full membership.

It’s also good for the industry – Havens was a failed club (we removed them from our directory several months ago) with almost no real estate assets to back up their membership deposit refund commitments. Havens members are now in better hands.

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