Murdoch tees up rescue of Loch Lomond golf course

  Retail agent Scott Murdoch has teamed up with a collection of golfing buddies to try to buy the Loch Lomond golf club in Scotland from HBOS.   Murdoch, who runs CWM, has contacted more than half the club’s 830 members to get their approval to form a committee to buy the business.   The club, whose members include Prince Andrew and Sir Sean Connery, is being sold by HBOS after its Arizona-based owner, Lyle Anderson, failed to renegotiate his debts with the bank. HBOS is understood to have received bids for Loch Lomond from leisure groups and high net worth individuals.   Murdoch has gathered “near universal” support from almost 450 of the club’s members – who pay annual fees of around £40,000 – to form a members’ executive committee.   Proposed members include UBS investment bank managing director Andrew Horricks, Clydesdale Bank chairman Ken Lewandowski, and several people from the property industry, including Murdoch, retail investor and former House of Fraser finance director Stefan Cassar, residential developer Jo Oliver, and US property investor Boyd Simpson.   In an email to club members, Murdoch writes: “We have no agenda other than to preserve Loch Lomond as we know it.”   He adds that the committee would be only an interim measure, and that its remit would not be to dictate to members how the club should be run.   Loch Lomond, which with the European Tour owns 50% of the Scottish Open, was thought to be worth more than £200m prior to the credit crunch.   samantha.mcclary@rbi.co.uk