The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Summit Insurance, the Bahamian general insurance underwriter, has confirmed to Tribune Business that it has purchased the former CLICO (Bahamas) branch building on Sears Hill as the site for its new head office.

Responding to Tribune Business’s inquiries, Timothy Ingraham, Summit’s president, said the property and casualty carrier, through which Insurance Management places much of its general business, hoped to move into its new home by the 2013 first quarter.

“I can confirm that Summit has purchased some CLICO properties on Sears Hill for an undetermined, or undisclosed, sum of money, and we plan to occupy that in the near future,” Mr Ingraham told Tribune Business.

“Hopefully, it will be some time early in the New Year. We need to do some work on the building, but hope to be in their in the first quarter of the New Year.”

Summit acquired the property, which sits at the ‘summit’ of Sears Hill, from CLICO (Bahamas) liquidator, Baker Tilly Gomez accountant and partner, Craig A. ‘Tony’ Gomez. The proceeds from the deal will now be applied to CLICO (Bahamas) bankruptcy estate, for the benefit of the insolvent insurer’s policyholders and creditors.

In disposing of its Bahamian-based real estate assets, chiefly the former branch properties, Mr Gomez has had to contend with numerous title deficiencies relating to these assets.

In his 10th report to the Supreme Court on progress in the CLICO (Bahamas) liquidation, Mr Gomez said the sale of six properties on Montrose Avenue/Sears Hill had been delayed due to the need to resolve “three aged Court matters”.

It was the same story when it came to CLICO (Bahamas) vacant Mount Royal Avenue (Hawkins Hill) property, Mr Gomez disclosing that while a sales agreement had been signed, closing was held up by a title defect.

In that instance, the buyer’s attorney had notified Mr Gomez that the property had been sold on January 16, 1984, to someone other than the company CLICO (Bahamas) purchased it from on November 25, 2004.

The conveyance for the January 16, 1984,had been stamped and lodged for recording that same year, and Mr Gomez added: “The aforementioned showed that CLICO has no legitimate title to the land.”

Mr Gomez and his Bahamian attorneys, Callenders & Co, have been working through such issues, making progress in most cases.

Mr Ingraham, meanwhile, confirmed that Summit Insurance’s Sears Hill deal had faced similar title issues, but these had been resolved and the transaction closed.

“We have purchased. We have resolved those [title defects] to everyone’s satisfaction. There were a few little issues, and they’re pretty much resolved. We got to a point where everyone was comfortable,” the Summit president told Tribune Business.

Asked why Summit had decided to purchase its own real estate, something that will require it to move from rented accommodation at the Island Traders Building, located on East Bay Street near the foot of Paradise Island Bridge, Mr Ingraham said the transaction was in the underwriter’s “best interests”.

Acknowledging that general insurers traditionally steered away from having heavy real estate weightings in their investment portfolios, the Summit president also pointed to the relatively low returns available currently on bank deposits.

“We felt that in the long-run it would be in our best interests to own a suitable property,” Mr Ingraham explained.

“For us, real estate is not something we want to do that much, of course, but when we look at rentals and everything you pay under it, we felt we’d be better off investing in something that belongs to you at the end of the day.

“It does give us something we can call our own, and control the environment as we please.”

And, given the low interest yields on bank deposits, Mr Ingraham said real estate was “likely to appreciate better” when it came to investment returns.

The move to the Summit of Sears Hill, though, will not lead to any staff expansion, Mr Ingraham noted. Declining to disclose the purchase price, he added that Summit was still determining its renovation budget.

“We’re in the process of getting plans and everything sorted out,” he told Tribune Business, “to move forward with the renovation of the property. We’re still trying to pin down the numbers and decided what we’re going to do.”