The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government was last night “finalising” approvals for a UK investor to acquire Freeport’s Port Lucaya Marketplace from a Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) affiliate, Tribune Business can reveal.

Multiple well-placed sources confirmed to this newspaper that the Marketplace, arguably Freeport’s leading retail and dining location, is being acquired from the GBPA’s Bourbon Street Ltd affiliate by Peter Hunt, a UK-based real estate developer.

Tribune Business understands that the Marketplace deal between Mr Hunt and Port Group Ltd, which owns Bourbon Street and the GBPA’s other productive/investment assets, is essentially completed.

“They are in talks to sell it to an English gentleman, Peter Hunt, of P & H Properties out of England,” one source, with knowledge of the deal, said of the GBPA/Port Group efforts to dispose of the Marketplace.

“He is a commercial real estate developer. He’s legitimate. He’s interested in seeing Freeport grow. He really loves Freeport. Everyone’s waiting on this [to complete]. Freeport needs it.”

Mr Hunt is already understood to have an investment interest in Freeport, having possibly acquired a residential property in the city.

Only Nassau’s approval, via the Cabinet’s National Economic Council (NEC) and Investments Board is outstanding, something that was confirmed by highly-placed Christie administration sources last night.

“There is an application before the Government that is being finalised,” one source told Tribune Business, when this newspaper inquired about Mr Hunt’s Port Lucaya Marketplace purchase. They said the deal was likely to go through.

Speculation surrounding the potential sale of Freeport’s Port Lucaya Marketplace has bubbled up ‘on and off’ for some time.

The facility features 40 stores and boutiques, 14 restaurants, six bars and three late night bars/lounges, plus three watersports operators.

Targeted at stopover visitors from the Memories and Grand Lucayan hotels, plus guests at other Freeport resorts, cruise ship passengers and locals, the Port Lucaya Marketplace also has room for 110 straw and authentic Bahamian craft vendors.

“I understand that the Government is holding up the marketplace on the approvals, and Hunt wants to go ahead on the Marketplace closing,” another source told Tribune Business. “The Marketplace seems to be doing well at the moment.”

However, the Government has yet to receive any approval application for Mr Hunt’s complementary acquisition target, the Port Lucaya Marina, which is ultimately owned by Scandinavian investor, Preben Olsen and his New Hope Holdings entity.

Sources said that while Mr Hunt wanted to complete a deal for the marina, this was currently being held up by furious multiple legal battles being waged by Mr Olsen and others over the facility.

“The purchaser wants to get the property with the marina,” one source said.

The UK investor had hoped to close the Port Lucaya Marina purchase in March/April this year, Tribune Business understands, but is having to wait until the legal morass is sorted out.

The battle is understood to revolve around a years-long dispute between Mr Olsen and Tony Gonzalez, of T. G. Investments, who allegedly provided the financial backing for the former’s initial purchase of the Port Lucaya Marina.

Mr Gonzalez and his firm then alleged that Mr Olsen and his companies had defaulted on repaying the $23-$24 million, which was said to be secured by two promissory notes or liens covering the real estate assets.

Mr Gonzalez succeeded in 2008 in temporarily getting former PLP politician, Philip Galanis, appointed as receiver for the Port Lucaya Marina and Grand Bahama Yacht Club Marina, plus the Grand Bahama Yacht Club.

This was later overturned by the court, with Mr Olsen and his companies alleging that T. G. Investments had failed to live up to its obligations to provide New Hope with $12 million in working capital - over and above the initial purchase price.

Without this capital, Mr Olsen alleged that New Hope defaulted - essentially making Mr Gonzalez and T. G. Investments responsible for the non-payment.

This, though, is understood to have created obstacles to a successful purchase of the Port Lucaya Marina by Mr Hunt, as Mr Gonzalez and his team are alleging they still have several liens secured on the property.

Mr Olsen and his attorney, Robert Adams of Graham, Thompson & Co, are understood to be going before the Supreme Court in October this year in a bid to get the liens removed.

Some sources also suggested that Mr Hunt was likely to have the Port Lucaya Resort in his sights, but others confirmed to Tribune Business this is not the case.

The resort is effectively landlocked because it is surrounded by the Port Lucaya Marina ‘wrap around’, and several observers suggested that teaming both together would facilitate the hotel’s development as a waterfront property.