The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A key Sarkis Izmirlian ally yesterday said he had little confidence that the Gaming Board had done “in-depth background research” on Baha Mar’s casino license because the outcome was “pre-determined”.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, a former Baha Mar Board member under the $4.2 billion project’s original developer, told Tribune Business that “putting the cart before the horse” showed it was inevitable Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE) would obtain the necessary approvals.

The FNM’s Freetown candidate in the upcoming general election suggested that the casino license award was effectively a ‘fait accompli’, given that CTFE had already hired staff and imported millions of dollars worth of gaming machines in anticipation of gaining approval.

Mr D’Aguilar also urged the Government and the Hong Kong-based conglomerate to “call a spade a spade”, and confirm that the April 21 ‘soft opening’ date is merely “a gimmick” to boost administration’s re-election prospects.

“I’m delighted they’re moving forward with the opening of Baha Mar,” he told Tribune Business. “However, the approval of the gaming license was already pre-determined, and it was inevitable it would happen because they’ve already imported the machines and hired the staff.”

Obie Wilchcombe, who has ministerial responsibility for gaming, confirmed on Tuesday that the Gaming Board had granted the necessary license and approvals to own/operate the Baha Mar casino.

The license award to CTFE’s Sky Warrior Bahamas subsidiary came just four days after the ‘public hearing’ on the application at the British Colonial Hilton.

That hearing appears to have been held solely for the Gaming Board to comply with the legal and procedural requirements of the Gaming Act 2014, and the speed with which the license approval was announced suggests the decision may have been taken prior to that hearing.

Graeme Davis, Baha Mar’s president, gave no insight into CTFE’s plans for the casino or projections of its financial performance, instead defending the company from anonymous attacks on its integrity.

However, the public hearing also raised no opposition to the casino license application, giving the Gaming Board no last-minute grounds to halt it.

“They have a deadline of April 21. They must show progress by April 21,” Mr D’Aguilar said of the Government and CTFE. “Whatever needs to be done by that date, all the persons that need to approve the documents are holding the pens ready.”

Mr D’Aguilar had previously alleged that CTFE and its owners, the Cheng family, were unsuitable to hold a Bahamian casino license because they had been denied such permits by gaming regulators in the US states of Nevada and New Jersey.

His claims sought to link the Cheng family and CTFE’s publicly traded subsidiary, New World Development, to concerns that Macau’s VIP gaming rooms were vulnerable to exploitation by Chinese/Asian crime gangs known as Triads.

Mr D’Aguilar attempted to link CTFE to this via its investment in Stanley Ho’s STDM and SJM companies, which control a significant share of Macau’s gambling industry.

Mr Davis, though, previously told Tribune Business that the claims of Mr D’Aguilar were “baseless and unfounded”, adding that CTFE has a strong reputation for business integrity and corporate governance.

CTFE has also attempted to distance itself from Mr Ho and Macau, arguing that it is a mere investor in the latter’s companies, and has no control or involvement in their managerial and operational aspects.

However, the Macau ‘issue’ has not gone away, with CTFE having to defend itself from attacks on its reputation right up until last week’s public hearing.

“They should have addressed all the issues,” Mr D’Aguilar told Tribune Business yesterday, implying that CTFE had failed to satisfy his concerns.

“No one was holding this up. This was getting approved. They [the Gaming Board] didn’t care what the reports were. It doesn’t give you confidence that they did in-depth background research because they put the cart before the horse. That set out the direction they were heading in.”

Obtaining the casino license was vital to CTFE’s closure of Baha Mar’s purchase from the China Export-Import Bank, as the 100,000 square foot gaming facility - the largest in the Caribbean and situated at the development’s core - represents its key amenity.

Mr D’Aguilar again disputed the description of April 21 as an ‘opening’, adding: “Most people in the lodging business don’t open a hotel until its absolutely ready.

“The only reason it’s opening on April 21 is because it’s three weeks to the next general election. I know it, they know it. Everybody knows it.

“Stop making something out of nothing. Call a spade a spade. I’ve never heard of all the fanfare they’ve got planned for a soft opening. It’s three weeks before the general election. Call it what it is. It’s a gimmick.”

Mr D’Aguilar suggested that CTFE would likely incur “horrendous losses” keeping Baha Mar going until the property was fully open - something that will not occur until April 2018, when the Rosewood property comes online.