VTN Backs Leisure World-Type Project in Africa : Retirement: The Orange-based company believes that building a complex in Senegal would save money for Japan and its elderly.
The Japanese government wants to send its retirees abroad where the living is cheaper, and a small Orange County company is offering a solution.
VTN Corp., an engineering firm in Orange, wants to build a giant Leisure World-type retirement community for Japanese and other foreign retirees along a 14-mile stretch of coastline in the West African nation of Senegal.
VTN said Monday that it had received approval from Senegal to build a 100,000-acre resort and retirement village and is trying to line up assistance from an international consortium of companies to go ahead with the project.
“There’s a tremendous cost for caring for the elderly in Japan, and this includes housing, food, services and medical care,” said Daniel C. Montano, VTN’s chairman. “A fully qualified nurse’s salary in Senegal is $100 a month, and the same qualified nurse in Japan costs about $4,000 a month.”
It’s not the first time that VTN has floated such a plan. A few years back, the company proposed building a retirement community in the Philippines for Japanese citizens, but the plans were indefinitely postponed when the nation was rocked by political instability.
Although Senegal traditionally has been one of Africa’s most politically stable nations, its calm has been shattered by increasing ethnic violence. Since April, more than 80 people have been killed and scores injured by the ethnic strife in some parts of the country.
Another obstacle facing VTN is that the Japanese government’s plan to resettle retirees outside Japan, where living costs are among the world’s highest, has come under strong criticism within the country. Moreover, a similar U.S.-Japanese venture to build a retirement community in New Jersey has generated little interest among Japanese retirees.
Montano, however, expresses confidence that no similar hitches will arise this time. He said VTN is talking with a group of unidentified Japanese, American and European companies to develop and finance the project, although no final plans have been completed.
The beachfront property, which would be donated by the Senegalese government, is located about 50 miles north of the capital of Dakar. It would be managed by a venture that would be 75% owned by VTN Corp. and 25% by the Senegalese government.
One of VTN’s partners for the Senegal project would be Alhaji Abdulaziz C. Ude , publisher of the Financial Post of Africa in Lagos, Nigeria, Montano said. He would help VTN work with various African governments to develop future retirement projects.
Montano envisions the Senegal development as the first of 10 retirement communities his company hopes to develop in partnership with Japanese, European and American companies in the next 15 years. He said VTN has already invested four years and $9 million in developing plans for its retirement communities.
VTN is not new to building retirement communities. It did preliminary engineering work for Leisure World in Laguna Hills. The Senegal plan would be similar to Leisure World’s, which has a golf course and a hotel, but would also include an airport and several golf courses and hotels, Montano said.
The Senegal project would be the largest ever for VTN, which had revenue of only $11.1 million in 1989. VTN is 80%-owned by European interests, including the Paris-based insurance giant Societe Generale, which have pledged to provide at least $20 million for the Senegal project, Montano said.
Under a previous owner, VTN provided engineering and construction work on 18 towns in Saudi Arabia between 1970-1987 in a $350-million project.
The Senegal project would cost an estimated $600 million, Montano said.
Japan has proposed relocating retirees in an effort to cope with an aging population, rising living and medical costs and an acute housing shortage in major cities. The Japanese government has estimated that Japan will have at least 20 million people age 65 and over by the year 2,000, or about 15% of its total population.
Seniors in Senegal? The proposed 100,000-acre retirement community, which will have 14 miles of white sand beaches, includes an airport, hotels, convalescent hospitals, a nursing school, a civic center, department stores, 15 golf courses and a cultural center.
