Mr. Richardson: TGS Properties is really two parts. It has a property building side to our company, which owns 24 buildings; it has a property management group of 160 employees. The second part of TGS Properties is a land development company centered around a land development play in the Banff/Canmore area of Alberta. It is the largest land development play in Western Canada, and when it is built out ' it is some 1,800 acres ' it will have 4,200 home sites, eight hotels, three golf courses, and about 650,000 square feet of commercial. The company is four and a half years old. Today it has 225 million of assets, some 50 million of book equity, and trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the stock symbol TGP. Presently, there are 35 million shares outstanding. It is widely distributed between some 2,000 shareholders, and we have approximately a half dozen institutional investors involved in the stock. The company is a leading Western Canadian real estate story. It is a mid-market cap company with lots of growth potential and lots of earnings potential. The long-term plan for the company is to ultimately have half a billion dollars in assets, and some 100 million in book equity. The company is very well managed, it has been profitable from the onset, from going public four and a half years ago.
TWST: Could you go into some detail on the 1,800 acres in Western
Canada?
Mr. Richardson: The Three Sisters development is six miles east of the
Banff National gate. The Banff National Park is one of the largest
national parks in North America, it has approximately 4 million visitors
a year. The 1,800-acre parcel is south of the Trans-Canada Highway, it
is long and narrow, it is approximately 11 kilometers long. It is backed
by the Three Sisters mountain range, which is stunningly beautiful
Canadian Rocky scenery. Today there are 630 homes on the site and there
is a hotel, a Marriott Residence Inn, and one golf course called Stewart
Creek. Stewart Creek was opened one year ago. It is nominated this year
as one of the best new golf courses in North America. We are quite
hopeful it will win the Canadian award for that designation. We are
presently in the process of bringing on Three Sisters Creek, which is a
sub-division within the total development, and that will bring on 40
million worth of lots this year. The ultimate plan, as I suggested, is
to have some 4,200 home sites, eight hotels and three golf courses. It
is an eight-to 10-year project, and it is some of the fastest
appreciating land in Western Canada.
Tickers included in this excerpt: TGP.TO
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