How the new waterfront could look, according to Global Ports Holding’s plans.
By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor
nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
Nassau Cruise Port yesterday confirmed it is steaming ahead with Prince George Wharf's transformation after raising $20m more than it needed from Bahamian and foreign investors.
The cruise terminal operator and its controlling owner, Global Ports Holding, described the $284.3m overhaul of a gateway that currently welcomes 4.4m passengers per year as "a definitely critical project" that cannot be delayed as they shrugged off the continuing fall-out and uncertainty caused by COVID-19.
Michael Maura, Nassau Cruise Port's chief executive, said the company's Board had decided to retain the $20m raised over and above the initial $130m target set for its recent bond financing raise. Some 200 investors placed money with the operator in what it describes as a vote of confidence in the project and the prospects for a cruise industry revival despite the sector extending its shutdown until September 15.
Recent figures unveiled by Global Ports Holding show just how vital Nassau Cruise Port is to the company, as the Bahamian capital accounted for 66 percent or two-thirds of the 1.253m total passengers that went through its 17 cruise ports in the three months to end-March 2020.
Mehmet Kutman, Global Ports Holding's chairman, told analysts that Nassau Cruise Port had achieved this effect despite the 834,000 passengers it processed being "lower than expectations" as the final two weeks of March were lost to the COVID-19 shutdown.
He added that Bahamians who want to own a piece of the cruise port when a total 49 percent equity stake is made available to them in 2021 can expect to receive a return on their investment almost immediately.
"There will be dividends distributed immediately from Nassau because of the 49 percent public shareholding," Mr Kutman told a recent conference call with investment analysts. "That's the expectation of the people according to our partners."
Comments
Hoda 4 years, 4 months ago
PR...not that they aren’t planning on full steam ahead, but I doubt 130 mil is sufficient capital to start and complete.
moncurcool 4 years, 4 months ago
So when will the offering be open to all Bahamians, and not the selected few?
proudloudandfnm 4 years, 4 months ago
As it is right now even the cruise lines have no idea how they'll survive this. I know I wouldn't buy shares yet. Wait to see what the cruise industry morphs into after this. I suspect though the day of super ships is behind us, which does not bode well for any of the cruise lines right now....
SipPis 4 years, 4 months ago
The cruise industry isn't going anywhere. The current players have raised impressive capital, but even if they were to seek bankruptcy protection, the industry itself will survive. Smaller ships would be a net positive to the port development.
bahamianson 4 years, 4 months ago
a promise is a comfort to a fool. so many hands will have to be greased to get this done and the people whom should benefit from it won't. Only the politicians in the Bahamas can legally insider trade and get away with it. The politicians , there sweethearts , friends and families will benefit from the top jobs and under the table contracts , not the masses. Again, quite disturbing.
tribanon 4 years, 4 months ago
One only has to read recent articles in the business sections of The Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times to understand that large scale leisure travel in the over-sized floating hotels will likely go the way of the extinct dinosaurs. The CDC and other health organizations have already accepted the basic fact that these mammoth passenger cruise ships are impossible to keep clean and are therefore the ideal breeding and spreading ground for all sorts of harmful viruses, including the deadly pathogen Covid-19. Only foolish investors, including certain foolish governments, are attempting to keep the cruise ship industry afloat. But there simply aren't enough foolish investors out there who will be willing to keep throwing good money after bad money in an effort to achieve the impossible task of keeping this industry afloat going forward.
Even many of the largest commercial airlines will be lucky to survive Covid-19 given the very costly transformational changes they will forced to undergo. The permanent loss of most business travellers is going to make airfares prohibitively expensive for the few remaining leisure passengers who will not be willing to fly to their vacation destinations anytime soon.
SipPis 4 years, 4 months ago
Except the Virus won't be with us for more than a year. This isn't our first pandemic. What happens when its gone and people want to say, I don't know, take an affordable cruise to the Bahamas? Perhaps it makes sense to plan for that day and build in the meantime? Just a thought.
tribanon 4 years, 4 months ago
The cat is out the bag with these Communist China bio-engineered viruses and the havoc they can wreak on western democracies and capitalism. Lots of people in confined spaces is going to be a thing of the past forevermore. There will be no immunity to the lab created viruses to come, which will be increasingly targeted by their sinister creators to individuals other than the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions.
It's an entirely new world now. And the Bahamas can ill-afford to keep all of its eggs in the tourism basket, especially when you consider the lowly contribution the cruise ship industry has been making to our economy and the Bahamian way of life for decades. We were better off decades ago without the gargantuan floating hotels of today loaded with their invisible filth that creates the perfect environment for harmful and deadly pathogens.
TalRussell 4 years, 4 months ago
Scientists need to be scrambling to develop an effective vaccine against the Bay Street Gold Rush-20.
Begin with trials on the comrade offsprings UBP's, and the being newly minted red coats well-connected Bay Street Boys.
Yet thousands PopoulacesOrdinary at large POAL are daily being left behind to hustle under the threat of imprisonment for a day's single meal. Nod once for Yeah, Twice for No?
John 4 years, 4 months ago
The US saw their biggest surge in Corona cases yesterday than since the pandemic began. NY and other states plan to quarantine or limit visitors from hit spits states like Florida and Texas. The highest number of cases are now among the 29-30 age group who are going out to bars and getting in crowded areas, not wearing masks and not practicing soci distancing. Health experts are concerned as cloud of Sarrah dust moves across the US along with an Artic heat wave as it may cause respiratory problems and make some people more susceptible to Corona
killemwitdakno 4 years, 4 months ago
Might as well have stated to have it ready for the boom once people start traveling again.
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