The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

AFTER another disappointment with the sale of the Grand Lucayan, Free National Movement leader Michael Pintard said the government has to exercise discipline in its messaging and to stop misrepresenting the facts.

He said that after Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper and his team berated the former administration for failure to close the sale, Mr Pintard took issue with the tone and tenor of his and others’ message and warned them against overselling and under delivering.

The comments come after the government recently admitted the resort’s $100m sale has collapsed and it is now seeking an alternative purchaser.

Mr Cooper had previously said Lucayan Renewal Holdings Ltd entered an agreement for the sale of the entire hotel property to Electra America Hospitality Group, which is part of a US conglomerate Electra America, with worldwide assets worth $7bn.

Mr Cooper explained on Tuesday the government had grown tired of the proposed buyer constantly stalling over the deal by repeatedly asking for due diligence extensions.

Mr Pintard said he cautioned the Progressive Liberal Party government, both the prime minister and the deputy leader, that they ought to do a couple of things.

“One is to learn lessons from the decisions we made to increase their chance of being successful. What did we do after government change – well they came with a plan to decouple the arrangement they had met in place. And decoupled simply means in this case that they met an arrangement in place where the potential buyer under the FNM was seeking to refurbish the Grand Bahama Harbour and develop that entire area into a theme park.

“And that particular project was coupled with a purchase of the hotel. So two things were happening jointly. The Davis-Cooper administration felt that in order to accelerate the sale of the Grand Lucayan they needed to decouple that. They needed to separate those two arrangements – both didn’t need to happen for either of the deals to be done. We supported that under my leadership.

“However we expressed cautious optimism, we said that we hoped for the government to succeed in selling the hotel at a price that was higher than what we understood to be the appraised value. Despite supporting that and expressing cautious optimism but more so hope that it worked - we continue to hear that there was a series of extensions given by the Davis-Cooper administration. We were familiar with this kind of response back from a buyer and again cautioned them. That did not prevent the deputy prime minister from gleefully representing that a sale had been executed. Our understanding was that there was no sale - that there was an intention to enter into a sale.”

He added: “And we labelled the government, as we do now, as having misrepresented the facts both in tune and in the substance of the statement that they made and that the danger in doing so is that they would shake the confidence of residents in Grand Bahama, investors in Grand Bahama, and potential investors on the island of Grand Bahama when they get the impression that what is being represented was not accurate. It then adversely affects their optimism, their confidence going forward.”

Mr Pintard argued that the perception could cause damage.

“It is our view that this overselling and under delivering this representation that a sale had been executed has been damaging to our reputation and that the government has to exercise message discipline,” he asserted.

“Discontinue from communicating these matters in the way that they have or representing these matters in the way they have because it is not them that’s going to pay the price. They’re all doing fairly well, at some exceptionally well. It is the Bahamian people who are going to be adversely impacted.”

The Marco City MP expressed one concern regarding the company.

“The other thing that we had serious concerns about is whether or not the government had done its due diligence on the company that it touted so highly and passed off as a part of the salvation of Grand Bahama. Not only executing the sale but also rescuing tourism in Grand Bahama and making substantial contributions to social initiatives,” he said.

“Based on our preliminary assessment of the company, we had paused. In other words, we did not understand the level of enthusiasm that the government was expressing given the limited knowledge that we had. And we left the door open to be convinced that the government was seeing things, getting information, verification of their track record and the pocket that made them so enthusiastic while all others were very cautious and were waiting to see in black and white that all that was being represented by the Davis- Cooper administration was true for this company.”

The other thing that posed concern was airlift and the hotel’s sale.

Mr Pintard said: “In other words, any potential buyer would like to know is there sufficient airlift that’s going to complement all of their efforts in promoting the hotel, developing a world class product that will be attractive to others. We heard really nothing from this administration, that gave us confidence that they had a handle on the development of the airport.

“First of all, they failed to identify the potential strategic partners that would enter into an arrangement with them to build out the new Grand Bahama International Airport. In the absence of a strategic partner, we knew that there could be no way that they would, one, have a design completed in a timely fashion, that they would have the money available to then build out whatever that design was. And then finally, they could not project a timeline, even though the deputy prime minister projected 2025 as the completion date.”