![]() Aside from Nelson Road, which cuts through it, the property is mostly a healthy stand of forestland that is zoned for agricultural use. The bulk of the acreage is situated in a swath of land that includes the 200-acre home of The Steeplechase at Callaway Gardens, an annual fundraising event for the arts. "The entity that's proposed buying the 4,000 acres that's our collateral has asked to remain anonymous and we will respect that to see if this transaction matures or not," he said, giving no timeline for a land sale to occur, although a property survey is now under way and should be completed in June. ![]() He also declined to discuss the possible sales price of the land, although at $4,000 per acre, it would fetch around $16 million. So, all three parties benefit."įor Yellow Sign, it presumably is an opportunity to make money off the retirement of the loan note through the sale of the property to a buyer Callaway would not disclose. "And Yellow Sign can do well with this, too. "I think they did a great job of exiting that note for their stockholders, but also did me a favor by giving me a more flexible lender," Callaway said. "We were able to create value between Synovus' options and Yellow Sign Inc.'s options, and in that value there was a deal between the two."įor Synovus, it allowed the bank to take the large loan off its books with ease - avoiding default proceedings against the iconic Callaway Gardens brand - while also appeasing shareholders and regulators. "We needed non-traditional lending to create the room under which we could sell this collateral," Callaway said. Yellow Sign is a private investment company that has much more lending flexibility than Synovus, which has been under federal regulatory oversight for several years because of the banking crisis.Įdward Callaway said his foundation approached both Synovus and Yellow Sign to broker the transaction transferring the resort's debt from one to the other, a move that took place in late March. Rogers is the son of Joe Rogers Sr., who co-founded the restaurant company with Tom Forkner in 1955. Kessel Stelling, the bank's chairman and CEO, in an interview several weeks ago, confirmed Callaway is a customer, but would not discuss it further.Ī call to Waffle House Chairman and CEO Joe Rogers Jr. Synovus on Friday declined to discuss the matter, saying it doesn't disclose customer relationships or transactions because of privacy laws. There's also Yellow Sign Inc., a subsidiary of Atlanta-based restaurant chain Waffle House, which entered the picture last December as a party interested in taking possession of the loan note held by Synovus to set up a potential land deal with Ida Cason Callaway Foundation. The bank's ATMs dispense money to Gardens visitors. The players involved include Synovus Financial Corp., the Columbus-based regional banking firm that has had a long relationship with Callaway Gardens and loaned the resort money to fund its operations through good times and bad. It is the resort operations, which encompasses about 1,000 acres of property, that has forced the foundation to make the drastic move of parting ways with the property that it is now using as collateral to help it survive. He stressed that the foundation itself, which has about 200 volunteers who help operate the resort, is not under any financial duress, operating from an endowment and Gardens admission fees. We just said the resort needs to carry its own weight." "We decided that we weren't going to carry it further. ![]() ![]() "The foundation has been feeding the resort every year of its deficit," said Callaway of the rising debt level, the amount he would not specify.
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