The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

FUSION Superplex has placed more than 350 employees on unpaid leave after it was blindsided by the government’s COVID-19 lockdown.

Carlos Foulkes, chief executive officer of the entertainment facility, told The Tribune on Friday the company saw no other way as it was faced with $1.1m in monthly operational costs.

He said revenue was directly tied to the facility’s ability to offer content to viewers.

Despite the circumstances, the CEO said there was no plan to conduct mass layoffs. Instead executives hoped the National Insurance Board would assist the workers until operations returned to normal.

Only a small group of Fusion’s employees remain on the job and are tasked with certain jobs needed for upkeep and other immediate matters.

Mr Foulkes expects the closure to last about 30 days.

The decision came just hours after Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis announced that a national curfew would take effect Friday, mandating people to remain in their homes until March 31 between 9pm and 5am. Business operations with few exceptions have also been suspended.

“We are obviously closed by mandate of the government, which we didn’t expect for our property yesterday, but nonetheless we support the government’s decision,” Mr Foulkes told this newspaper when he was contacted Friday.

“We believe they are making the right decision and we are a business of public assembly so we know it impacts us specifically and directly.

“So we have decided to simply close and we have not tied a date to our opening yet because the government said they would reassess at the end of the month to see if there is going to be an extension of the curfew conditions. So for us to preempt that to come with an opening date that would be kind of silly.

“In addition to that, the international impact is Hollywood studios have essentially decimated their movie release schedule and that is a major portion of our business.”

He also said: “So we have some uncertainty as to when content, product will be available to us to show to the public. So those two factors when we are available to open and when the Hollywood Studio would provide content suitable for us to have our customers entertained would determine when we open again. I am anticipating at this point probably a 30-day closure.”

Asked how this closure was expected to impact the business, Mr Foulkes said the company could only afford to continue this way for a limited time.

“Well, we do have a small contingent of staff members maintaining the building that is because of the size of the building and the specialised equipment, so we need security staff and operations staff and an administrative crew and of course they require compensation for work.

“Without revenue eventually our reserves are going to be dried up and so we will only be able to go so long without some type of assistance from the authorities or the banking community and from the very beginning we have had difficulty getting banking assistance here locally. They consider our project high risk and getting overdraft facilities and things like that here we had to do all of that with fully secured funding as opposed to banks taking risks with us. That’s a difficult consideration.

“We had to lay off all of the employees except the small contingent I just mentioned and so I have over 350 employees on unpaid leave.

“We do not intend to conduct any mass layoff exercises. We simply put them on unpaid leave and it is my hope at this point that the National Insurance Board will be able to assist with compensation to these employees while they are on unpaid leave.

“Our revenue is directly tied to our capacity to make payments to our employees and also our vendors, people who we buy supplies and stuff from,” he also said.

“The lights and stuff are still on so those types of expenses still have to be considered. I still have a centre of equipment that must remain cool, the air-condition must stay on. I still have water needs and insurance must still be paid to cover the building in the event of a catastrophe so minimum expenses must be considered and those matters are going to be set aside so that the company stays viable for when we are returning to operation.”

Speaking to his employees, Mr Foulkes said executives wanted them to know they had every intention of bringing them back to work.

“Bear with us and once we get back operational we believe that the Bahamian people after being cooped up so long would want to come out to our facility and enjoy themselves so we may be able to immediately return to our original conditions of business assuming the virus is contained locally,” he said.