Michael Broussard, CEO and founder of Broussard Properties, announced in mid-November a $2 billion pipeline of investments between his company and Monolith Capital to develop hotels across Saudi Arabia. That new venture, Monolith Arabia, combines investments from the United States and the United Kingdom into wellness resorts across the country at a moment when its geopolitical position is changing rapidly.
Utah Business recently caught up with Broussard to discuss the project, its challenges and hurdles, and opportunities for growth.
UB: What is the plan for Monolith Arabia?
MB: The way we like to describe it is next-generation hospitality, wellness and residential destinations across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
UB: Can you talk a little about what that means?
MB: Our core offering is a network of wellness and rejuvenation resorts that will offer a full service, including an on-site stem cell institute where we will be able to provide stem cell treatments to guests. They can use all of our different networks, so they can come in and we’ll do the full blood work on them, and they’ll be able to receive treatments.
We will be able to have a real ethical standard, too. A lot of times in that business, places just order stem cells, right? You don’t really know the background of it or where it comes from and the efficacy of it. So, we feel like our product will be very spectacular that way. The Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Investment, and the Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia love our concept because right now, Saudis leave the country and go to Switzerland and other places to get these exact treatments. So, the fact that we will offer this product and this type of service in amazing destinations in Saudi Arabia is really what’s driving our opportunity here.
UB: Talk about where the stem cell element came into the mix. At what point was that introduced, and how did it become a central piece?
MB: My background is that I’m a hospitality operator. My partners with Monolith Capital brought this concept [of a stem cell institute] to the wellness to give us a product that would be superior in the marketplace. We are partnering up with COLEL, and they are launching a destination resort in Mexico to lead this effort and provide these services.
In partnership, that’s how we’ll offer that. I have no medical background, just a very loose framework about how all this stuff works. So, I rely on the professionals to do that.
We’re creating these opportunities to make this network of destinations that will all work hand-in-hand to provide these great services and experiences.
UB: At what point did the connection between you guys at Monolith and the Saudis come into play? How did the relationship start?
MB: I’ve been working on developing concepts in Saudi Arabia for over three years. Then, I tried to buy a building from Monolith Capital in Florida. And while that transaction didn’t close, we discovered how well we work together.
[Monolith Capital] was interested in coming with me to Saudi Arabia to learn more and understand the landscape. Once I got them there, and I set up the core opportunities of all the work I’ve been doing the past couple of years, we created these offerings with these wellness resorts. In addition, we are also going to construct a number of hotels and branded residences.
They are developers by trade, so they have experience developing hotels. In addition, we want to do these branded resorts. It was just the right time to find the right partners.
That’s really what I’ve achieved here is I founded a company; I found the right partners to help me develop and grow the company. Collectively as a team, we’ve really achieved some amazing things in the past year. Now, we have the support of the Ministry [of Investment] for our first 11 projects to move forward.
One exciting thing about that is on all of our projects, the private land owner or the government is contributing the property into the venture. Let’s say we’re going to build a hotel that we will brand as Marriott. We get the land contributed in kind. Then we provide the additional equity that we need beyond the construction financing, and that’s how we scale up our project. But the ability to have the in-kind property contributed is amazing for being able to grow this portfolio.
So again, to further expand on that, with a $200 million project, $100 million worth of land is donated to the project, 50 in construction financing we set up, and then we contribute the additional equity needed, $50 million or so, to complete the project.
UB: It’s a very involved project. There are a lot of moving pieces to keep track of.
We’ve had to get the government’s endorsement, and the press release announced that we signed for it [in November].
That’s really a significant thing to have that support of private landowners and the government to scale our projects. One additional example is a beautiful destination called Aseer in Abha. We signed a deal last week with the governor there to get the land contributed in kind to our project. We’re going to build an amazing hotel destination wellness concept on top of this amazing mountain. It’s just stunning.
The landscape reminds me of Moab and a little bit of St. George. And that’s what people don’t understand about Saudi Arabia, is that some of it [has such a] beautiful landscape.
Actually, it’s very mountainous. This area that we’re building, this particular destination, it’s like 20 degrees cooler than the other parts of Saudi Arabia. It’s very much a destination that people want to go to in the summer to get away from the heat.
UB: Can you talk about what the next couple of years will look like? How do you manage the construction? The logistics and the workforce — it’s a lot to set up.
MB: The biggest risk in the development process is controlling the construction. We have formed a joint venture with one of Saudi Arabia’s leading construction companies, Al-Redwan Contracting Company.
They are a legacy family construction company that has been in business for over 50 years. They have a Grade A license. They have over 500 employees.
We have now formed a joint venture in which they will construct our whole portfolio of properties. We have a lot of experience on the ground with a company that has built over 20 hotels that we will be in a joint venture with. We can control that process, and we can execute on a very high level.
We are launching our business and [opened] our doors in January, in Riyadh, our headquarters. We have hired a CEO, Dr. Yasser Altighi. He’s a very renowned doctor in the healthcare space and will help us create this experience in the wellness area. He will be one of 20 employees that we’re bringing on board in Q1 to launch all of our products and portfolios across the kingdom.
UB: Can you talk about the Utah connection?
MB: I’m from Utah. I’m a lifelong Utahn.
I went to Saudi Arabia, and I started on the ground level, not really knowing what to expect. I was invited to a conference there, and I’ve just moved through the landscape of trying to sort out how I’m going to construct a deal, what I’m looking for. I found the partner.
I saw the landscape in Aseer, and I recognized it as Moab and that people would want to come and recreate in an area like this because it’s amazing. Not only the temperature, but the landscape and just the beauty of the area. It’s my whole lifelong experience [and] what has launched this company.
The Broussard Investment Fund is headquartered in Utah. It’s a Utah venture.
I have a joint venture with Monolith Capital. They are shareholders in the company, and my company is a shareholder in the company. I’m the founder and chairman [of Monolith Arabia].
In addition to that, we have secured the commitment from a sheikh that I can’t publicly identify, but he has agreed to, and we are moving forward with a commitment of over $8 billion in land. He has a massive land bank, so we’re going to build a number of projects and he wants us to develop his properties.
So there’s three main players [in this deal]. We’ve got a billionaire sheik. We have myself in Utah, who’s helped get everything started. And we have Monolith Capital, a firm based in Washington, in Florida and in London.
What I think the story is about, though, is me taking a bold step, right? It was very much an unknown to go there and then just stay after it. I’ve been to Saudi Arabia four times this year for like 30 days each time, meeting with the government, meeting with different stakeholders in wellness and in resorts, meeting and courting huge investors, such as the sheikh.
There’s a lot of opportunity in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. That’s what I’m growing. My success will translate into success that I can also reinvest in Utah and other projects here as I make things happen there.
I will certainly make things happen in my own hometown and in my state as I will continue to be a lifelong Utahn. My family’s here and they’re all the owners of this company.
UB: You mentioned it’s been three years since you’ve been looking into Saudi Arabia, but can you talk about what that original conference was that you got invited to?
MB: I was invited to attend the Founders Club International delegation. I paid to attend and go on this delegation and get an additional 10-day tour of the kingdom. We met with different departments: the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Investment. And originally, I went to the kingdom thinking that I was going to raise capital in Saudi Arabia to deploy to vacation rentals in Utah and in the U.S., thinking that the Saudis would be interested in investing in my companies in Utah.
But I soon discovered that all of the opportunities are in Saudi Arabia. They’ve opened their country since 2019, where all the Muslims in the world have all always wanted to go to Saudi Arabia and visit their religious destinations of Mecca and Medina and have the pilgrimages and the experiences that they’ve all aspired to. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had restricted how many people could come in and who could come in. They have since opened that up.
So now, tens of millions of more people are flowing into the kingdom. There is this amazing demand for hospitality products, hotels, resorts and wellness facilities because they just haven’t had many people there. And now, the kingdom is wide open for tourism and as many people as possible will come in there.
There’s demand for a hundred million. So they can take 19, but in five years, they might open it up to 25 million as the hotels build up.
There’s an interest and demand to go there. And so, we’re catching it on a very interesting time, and it’s just amazing that we can come there and build the product that will be completely utilized and occupied in and has such demand.
UB: Is there anything that you wanted to share that you hadn’t already?
MB: The only thing I would want to say is that my goals on the onset of this were to try to do something new. I needed a challenge. And all of a sudden, I took the risk and I made the trip.
All these opportunities have blossomed out of it. I would like to encourage others in the business sector that sometimes you need to be willing to take risks to really see what’s possible.