County Firms in Face-Off : Beauchamp Enterprises’ Offer Jeopardizes CIB’s Bid to Control Ventura Property

A company owned by Orange County dentist Robert F. Beauchamp is negotiating to operate a beleaguered retail village in Ventura Harbor, jeopardizing efforts by a Huntington Beach firm to seize control of the seaside shopping district.

Beauchamp Enterprises, named after the “credit dentist” whose aggressive ads helped pioneer installment-plan dentistry, has proposed a $6.5-million to $8-million lease to operate most of Ventura Harbor’s shopping village, a harbor official said this week. The Ventura Port District is expected to consider the 50-year lease at its Jan. 18 meeting.

Harbor officials predict that the proposal by Beauchamp, which has real estate holdings throughout Southern California, including two marinas at Ventura Harbor, will be greeted warmly because it would bring at least $350,000 in sorely needed wharf improvements.

A signed lease with Beauchamp would also stave off takeover attempts by CIB Development, a Huntington Beach firm that has ties to former savings and loan executive Ranbir S. Sahni.

CIB has claimed legal title to Harbor Village, the cluster of 100 shops, restaurants and boating-related facilities that make up the harbor’s tourist core. Harbor Village has been rudderless since its developer and operator, Ocean Services, went bankrupt in 1986, leaving behind $16.3 million in debts and a complicated legal web that has yet to unravel fully.

The Beauchamp proposal “gives us some measure of relief,” said Richard Parsons, Ventura Harbor’s general manager. “Given the circumstances, I think it’s a fair deal for both parties.”

Phone calls to the company’s offices in Newport Beach went unreturned.

But Parsons said terms tentatively call for Beauchamp to pay off $6.5 million in municipal-type bonds that went into default when Ocean Services declared bankruptcy. That prospect pleases harbor officials because the bonds, which funded construction of Harbor Village, held the port district conditionally liable should Ocean Services default.

Parsons said the deal would also bring long-term stability, planning and growth to Harbor Village. During the Ocean Services regime, many tenants found business less than booming because of too few tourists, spotty advertising and a management style that Parsons said “left a lot to be desired.”

Beauchamp is no stranger to Ventura Harbor. From 1978 to 1982, the firm built two marinas there with 560 slips that are now worth an estimated $15 million, Parsons said.

“We are quite comfortable with them. They have a good track record and have been a responsible operator here in the harbor,” he added.

The firm’s founder and patriarch, 74-year-old Dr. Robert F. Beauchamp, began building an empire in 1939 by aggressively advertising to lower-income and minority communities dental care that could be financed without interest.

He parlayed his early dental earnings into real estate and other investments, and today his closely held empire--run mainly by family members--is said to total $500 million in assets. In addition to dental clinics, his holdings include shopping centers, office buildings, apartment complexes and two other marinas--a 985-slip marina at Dana Point Harbor and a 611-slip marina in San Diego that has two eateries, boating businesses and a clothing shop.

While Ventura Harbor officials stress that they have not worked out a final lease agreement, they also stress that they welcome Beauchamp.

Their alternative is CIB, which bought most of the outstanding harbor bonds in July and attempted, in a court action in December, to take possession of Harbor Village.

Ventura Superior Court Judge Edwin M. Osborne denied CIB’s request Dec. 15, but the firm is expected to seek further court action. The Beauchamp deal would resolve those takeover attempts by paying CIB the money it is owed on the harbor bonds.

Should CIB gain control of the harbor, however, the port district might be forced to turn over all its revenue from leasing Harbor Village--an estimated $325,000 annually--until it pays off the harbor bond debt of $6.5 million, Parsons said.

There are other reasons that the port district has not raced into CIB’s embrace.

CIB’s president, Bobby S. Mehta, formerly headed a subsidiary of American Diversified Savings Bank, a defunct Costa Mesa thrift that was 96% owned by Ranbir Sahni, and is involved in at least one of the lawsuits brought by regulators.

Regulators seized the S&L; 3years ago, ousted Sahni, Mehta and others and closed the thrift in June. The liquidation of the failed S&L; resulted in a $1.14-billion refund to depositors--the largest pay-out ever by the financially strapped Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp., the industry-funded government agency that insures S&L; deposits.

FSLIC and Sahni are involved in a number of lawsuits against each other stemming from the takeover of American Diversified. The suits brought by regulators allege a host of civil wrongs from mismanagement to fraud and racketeering. Sahni’s suits charge regulators essentially with trying to bankrupt him by withholding various fees and commissions so he can’t fight their lawsuits against him.

Mehta could not be reached for comment. He is a longtime aide to Sahni and is married to Sahni’s sister. Besides serving as president of one of the S&L;’s divisions, Mehta was director of American Diversified.

Sahni said in an interview Tuesday that he is not involved with CIB and owns no part of it. At one time, Sahni did “some consulting” for CIB, he said. Now CIB and American Development Corp., one of Sahni’s firms, share a suite of offices in a Huntington Beach building.

Though Mehta owns CIB, federal S&L; regulators believe CIB is controlled by Sahni, said Joseph E. Thomas, a Costa Mesa attorney representing FSLIC in a lawsuit against Sahni, CIB and Mehta.

The suit, filed last year, alleges that Sahni wrongfully transferred a real estate limited partnership from American Diversified to CIB. A judge has issued a preliminary injunction against the defendants, which temporarily stays the effectiveness of the transfer until a full trial on the issues.

Although a CIB takeover of the Harbor project would require Ventura Harbor to forgo profits into the next century, the harbor should begin generating profits again in 1990 under the Beauchamp deal, Parsons said.

Ventura Harbor earns some of its $2-million annual budget by leasing out Harbor Village, which it did under the Ocean Services agreement and would like to do with Beauchamp. The operator, in turn, subleases the shops and boat slips, runs the village and turns over to the port district a percentage of gross revenue that ranges from 1% to 20%, depending on the business.

The Beauchamp deal calls for the harbor to forgo any lease revenue for 1989 and to realize about $100,000 in 1990. That figure will rise each year until it reaches the sum the port district would have received based on its complicated percentage scale.

“I wouldn’t want to characterize the financial arrangement as something we’re thrilled with, but given the circumstances . . . we’re pleased to have the Beauchamps coming in,” Parsons said.

Times staff writer James S. Granelli contributed to this report.