The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian-led developer yesterday expressed hope its planned BISX listing in 2019's first quarter will "change attitudes" towards local investment in the country's largest industry.

Sir Franklyn Wilson, pictured, head of Eleuthera Properties, told Tribune Business that taking Jack's Bay Investments Ltd public via the Bahamas International Securities Exchange (BISX) was designed to showcase the developer's progress rather than any need for capital.

Jack's Bay is one of the south Eleuthera properties where build-out activities are accelerating, with Sir Franklyn disclosing that the developer is "close to finalising a Heads of Agreement" with the Minnis administration for development of its substantial landholdings.

"We are increasingly confident that this project we've been working on in south Eleuthera for a very long time is coming together very nicely," the Arawak Homes and Sunshine Holdings chairman said yesterday.

"We are more than cautiously optimistic about the future of South Eleuthera. The reasons are that the quality of people visiting us, investors and property buyers, are concluding this [Jack's Bay] is one of the most majestic sites in this part of the world. I think we're close to finalising a Heads of Agreement with the Government. We're very, very optimistic."

Jack's Bay, which Eleuthera Properties is developing in partnership with TGR Designs, a firm owned by world-renowned golfer, Tiger Woods, firm and Beacon Land Management, is just one of its landholdings in the south Eleuthera area.

They also include Cotton Bay and Davis Harbor, and Sir Franklyn said Eleuthera Properties' patience in holding on to its several thousand acres until development conditions were right now seemed set to pay off.

"We've owned the property for over three decades, and have been great stewards of it," he recalled. "We have resisted offers from third party developers and financiers to develop the property that we thought were not ideal for the community and the country.

"We turned down an offer from just before the last recession, where an investment bank from New York offered to build the next Atlantis. It was one of the top 50 global banks. We resisted that. We had the regional chief executive from one of the Canadian banks here the other day, and he thinks the country is going to be very well rewarded for the patience demonstrated."

With the likes of Albany and Baker's Bay showing that resort-style communities can succeed in the Bahamas, Sir Franklyn said Eleuthera Properties now had a timeline for fulfilling its previous pledge to stage an initial public offering (IPO) of shares in one of its subsidiaries.

"I can tell you it's our intention to hopefully have something listed on BISX before the end of the first quarter next year," he told Tribune Business. "It's not so much to raise money as we have no bank debt.

"We won't be going to the market to raise money in the first instance. We will be going to market to build and sustain capital markets awareness of what we are doing."

Sir Franklyn confirmed that "the company going to list" is Jack's Bay Investments. This newspaper reported earlier this year that the subsidiary under IPO consideration was the holding company for the Jack's Bay Club.

"We believe listing what we're doing on BISX will help to change attitudes towards our number one industry," he said. "We're focusing on that as part of the mission. Because of what is happening elsewhere we can expose the capital markets to what we're doing."

Sir Franklyn said Albany and Baker's Bay had taken away the "pioneering" element associated with developing resort-style communities in the Bahamas, with both showing they could attract sufficient volumes of high net-worth buyers and generate investor returns.

He argued that this followed Sir Sol Kerzner's achievement with Atlantis, which transformed investor attitudes towards the Bahamian hotel industry by proving it was possible to earn a profit from resort ownership.

"The problem this country had before Sol Kerzner came was that a lot of monied people did not have faith in the hotel industry here as they could not point to a model that worked," Sir Franklyn told Tribune Business.

"The Paradise Island hotels had been owned by a revolving door of owners that did not make any money. For a while before Sol Kerzner investors in the hotel industry could not make any money in The Bahamas. One of Sol Kerzner's contributions to The Bahamas, and he made many, was to convince people that, yes, you can make money in hotels here in the Bahamas.

"Before Sol Kerzner who would have believed that? In our case, the success of Albany and Baker's Bay has done a similar thing for resort communities," Sir Franklyn added. "We are no longer pioneering.

"Very few people want to invest in pioneering ventures, but the success of Albany and Baker's Bay has removed this sense of pioneering and I believe once we achieve this degree of success investors all over this country will have another example to point to."

Eleuthera Properties' current shareholders include Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Sunshine Holdings, CFAL, BAF Financial and RoyalStar Assurance, plus the family of Sir Orville Turnquest and the estates of the late Billy Lowe and John Morley.

Jack's Bay, which is located just south of Rock Sound, is aiming to complete amenities such as 'The Pink House', Ocean Spray restaurant, tennis and pickle ball courts, water recreational activities and two private cays by November 2018. Lot sales have already begun.

Eleuthera Properties is also moving to further develop Davis Harbour Marina, which it owns and operates at the edge of the Waterfront community.

The developer, though, has had to contend with several challenges to its land ownership in Eleuthera's south, with judgment now awaited on one from the Bahamas' highest court, the UK-based Privy Council.

The Bannerman Town, and Millars and John Millars Eleuthera Association, have taken their case all the way through the Bahamian judicial system, with the Privy Council hearing the matter over a two-day period from July 17-18 this year.