Sun
Millennium Development Corp.
Vancouver-based Millennium Development Corp., according to the company website, is a subsidiary of a Canadian firm called the Aremco Group.
Millennium, whose principals are Peter Malek and Shahram Malek, won the right to develop the Olympic athletes’ village project in 2006 with a $193-million bid for the property, which was a record price for developable property at the time.
The developer outbid Concord Pacific and Wall Financial for the right. Concord had the next highest bid at $170 million.
The developer proposed to build the village as a leading-edge, environmentally sustainable community called Millennium Water, with a small number of social housing units and luxury waterfront housing, worth $1.1 billion.
Millennium’s past projects in Vancouver include the much-touted 79-suite Water’s Edge project in West Vancouver; the 32-storey, 203-suite L’Hermitage tower in downtown Vancouver; and the seven-tower, $350-million City in the Park project.
For the Millennium Water project, the developer obtained financing for construction from Fortress Capital, a branch of Fortress Investment Group.
FORTRESS INVESTMENT GROUP
New-York-based Fortress Investment Group bills itself as an investment management company with, as of June 30, $35.1 billion US in assets under its management.
Fortress Investment is a publicly traded company that earns fees from the funds and subsidiary companies it purchases on behalf of investors. Its investments, according to company filings, include private equity funds that invest in real estate, among other investments, and hedge funds.
Vancouver-based resort and real-estate firm Intrawest is one of Fortress Investment’s 11 subsidiary firms, which it purchased in 2006 for $2.8 billion.
Intrawest, which owns Whistler Blackcomb — the venue for alpine ski events during the 2010 Olympics — made news in October when it had difficulty renegotiating $1.7 billion in debt. Intrawest completed the debt restructuring on Oct. 23, just prior to its deadline, though details were not released.
However, overall, 2008 has proven difficult for Fortress, which to the end of June had posted $124 million US in losses.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
