The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister yesterday said he was unaware that China Construction America (CCA) had any plans to sell its $200m Pointe project and the adjacent British Colonial Hilton.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister of tourism and aviation, responding to reports suggesting that the Chinese state-owned contractor had placed both properties on the market for a combined $400m, said he had recently been contacted by CCA over government participation in an opening ceremony for the Pointe.

“I haven’t heard anything. They certainly haven’t come to us,” he said. “I think they were behind us because they want to do an opening now that they’ve completed construction and are ready to begin operations. I think their chairman is coming to town this week, but I don’t know what got arranged.”

Daniel Liu, CCA’s top Bahamas-based executive, did not respond to Tribune Business calls seeking comment. However, staff at The Pointe, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were unaware of any sale.

And Darrin Woods, president of the Bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU), which represents the Hilton’s line staff, said he and the union were also unaware of any sale.

“I haven’t heard anything about that. Not at this stage,” Mr Woods replied, adding that the union and workers were only typically informed of a resort’s sale once an agreement on a deal was reached.

“It has an effect on employees, either by way of notification or persons being made redundant,” he said of resort deals. “The reason people put properties up for sale is because usually there’s financial problems with the company, the company is not doing well or the property is not doing well.”

None of this appears to be the case with CCA, which is backed by the Beijing government. “There’s so much ‘if’ in it right now that it’s difficult to speak definitively to anything that might happen there right now until it starts to unfold,” Mr Woods added.

“We don’t let anything take us by surprise, but we have to wait and see. They’ll have to put more meat on the bone for us.” CCA acquired the British Colonial Hilton for a price thought to be in the $50m-$60m range in October 2014, right at the time when it was supposed to be racing the multi-billion dollar Baha Mar project to construction completion under former owner Sarkis Izmirlian.

That deal is among the multiple targets of Mr Izmirlian’s request for Bahamian judicial assistance relating to his $2.25bn fraud and breach of contract claim against CCA.

Legal documents obtained by Tribune Business reveal that the New York State Supreme Court, which will ultimately determine the outcome of the fight between CCA and Baha Mar’s original developer, is requesting help in obtaining potential evidence thought to be held by multiple Bahamas-based banks and companies.

One assistance request is for Cross & Mosko Real Estate and Development Company, whose principals are Jimmy Mosko and Kevin Cross, to produce multiple documents and communications relating to the British Colonial Hilton’s October 2014 sale to CCA which they brokered.

Mr Izmirlian and BML Properties believe these may provide evidence to support their claim that the Chinese state-owned contractor used a disputed $54m payment intended to “accelerate” its construction work at Baha Mar to instead fund the acquisition of the downtown Nassau resort.

“Plaintiff seeks to obtain documents from Cross & Mosko, who brokered the sale in October 2014 of the British Colonial Hilton to defendants,” the New York court’s legal assistance request states.

“These documents have a direct connection to the subject matter of the New York litigation because plaintiff alleges that in order to purchase and develop the British Colonial Hilton, defendants used funds they had pledged to the Baha Mar project and diverted both tangible and intangible resources to the Hilton venture, defrauding plaintiff and exacerbating the delays already plaguing Baha Mar.”