Investors Pumped Billions Into Suburbs That Never Got Built
- Deals involved ‘rare approach to investment in real estate’
- Some Walton Group backers say they’ve lost 80% of value
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Investors from Singapore to Toronto are wondering why North America’s vaunted urban sprawl ebbed before the billions they pumped into a giant "land banking" firm could pay off.
Walton Group of Companies, a Calgary-based real estate firm that had delivered 12 percent annual returns in the past, sold them on the idea of investing roughly $10,000 or more apiece in rural properties outside of fast-growing cities such as Phoenix, Toronto and Atlanta.