PENANG, April 7 — The clock has started ticking for Datuk Patrick Lim and his vision of building the Penang Global City Centre on the turf club land in Penang.
The Penang Turf Club today decided that he has until early 2011 to build a new racecourse in Batu Kawan as a replacement for the existing one in Jalan Bukit Gantong. If Abad Naluri, the company in which Lim has a stake, cannot meet the deadline, it will have to pay a penalty of RM10,000 for each day of the delay.
Worse yet, if Abad is unable to meet its obligations, it will have to forfeit whatever payments it has made to the Penang Turf Club.
The Insider has learnt that these were among some of the decisions made after a heated annual general meeting at the PTC today. Club members were up in arms over a recent decision by the committee members to extend an option that Abad has to develop this choice real estate.
In 2004, Abad agreed with the turf club to acquire the land in Bukit Gantong for RM488 million. As part of the deal, it was supposed to build a race course in Batu Kawan for RM375 million and hand it over to the PTC by 2007. The balance would be paid in cash to the turf club.
But delays in obtaining approvals meant that the original time table could not be met. The defeat of the Barisan Nasional state government in Election 2008 and the misgiving the Opposition has over the viability of the PGCC project complicated matters for Lim.
The Insider has learnt that the turf club committee agreed recently to extend the deal for three more years. They were challenged by committee members today but lawyers said that they had acted within their powers. Still the reprieve for Lim does not really mean that he is out of the woods.
He needs to raise some serious money to build the race course in Batu Kawan and carry the financing over the next two to three years. Also, he will not be able to use the title of the existing turf club land to raise funds. And no financial institution is going to be willing to lend Abad money with serious question marks over whether the state government will sanction the PGCC project.
For now at least, it looks like Lim’s PGCC plan will be still born. The property developer has been taking a battering in the last few months over this project and the perception that he enjoys favoured status because of his close association with Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and the first family.
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