After years of being on the market, Score Golf was finally sold this past year to a new ownership group going by the name of NordStar Capital. Prior to the ScoreGolf purchase partners Jordan Bitove and Paul Rivett struck a $60-million agreement to take a struggling media company private, including its Toronto Star newspaper and various local news outlets it operates in other cities. Included within the media group properties is the Toronto Golf and Travel Show that was paused for the past two years due to the pandemic.
Paul Rivett was the President (from 2013 to 2020) of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (Fairfax), a global insurance and value investing-focused company based in Toronto, Ontario. Fairfax Financial and CI Investments was the company that agreed to buy retailer Golf Town from the chain’s U.S. parent, which was seeking protection from its creditors. Bitove is known for helping launch the Toronto Raptors basketball team and was also part of the ownership consortium that built the SkyDome, now known as the Rogers Centre.
After only two years of operation the relationship between owners have reached a boiling point, and their communication is said to be “irrevocably impaired” after months of failing to see eye[1]to-eye. The partners are now headed to court with Rivett filing an application to wind up the media company.
He has asked the court to appoint Princewaterhousecoopers to manage an asset sale to resolve the “impasse” between the two parties. The lawsuit suggests an inglorious end, essentially an estate sale for a partnership that is dead. The future of the Star and all the various properties might even involve a coin toss.
Under the plan Rivett requests in a court filing, either of the two would get first crack at bidding on the enterprise, or parts of it.
If both parties want any of the same lots there would be an auction. If only one of them wants an asset, the two can haggle, and if they can’t agree on a price, it would go to valuation arbitration, the proposal says.
ScoreGolf and the Toronto Golf and Travel Show are really inconsequential when looking at the overall picture and all the components. Depending on how the legal issues are resolved between the partners the golf media landscape in Canada might be changing next year.
