The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A key member of the Government’s Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) negotiating team has pledged it will investigate how Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) became involved in the privatisation process when it was not among the original bidders.

Emphasising that this did not impugn CWC, which has retained the largest stake in BTC, plus Board and management control, Franklyn Wilson said he was sticking to his original position that the 2011 privatisation was an “horrendously” bad deal for the Government and Bahamian people.

The Sunshine Holdings chairman, though, as he has done before, declined when pressed to go into detail on why the Ingraham administration’s April 2011 sale of a 51 per cent stake in BTC was such a bad deal.

He did, though, blast the Free National Movement’s (FNM) leader, adding: “Dr Minnis will have his day in court to explain why he agreed to what he agreed to.”

It is clear, though, that he and other members of the negotiating committee are moving into ‘high gear’ to sell the revised agreement, which sees CWC donate slightly less than 2 per cent of its stake to The BTC Foundation, where it will be held in trust.

And, while the committee is sticking to its original recommendation that the Government appoint either a Parliamentary select committee, or a Commission of Inquiry, to probe the BTC deal, Mr Wilson did confirm he and his fellow members were looking into how CWC entered the process.

“That is something which the committee will investigate, but that does not implicate Cable & Wireless,” Mr Wilson told Tribune Business.

“If you let me come through the back door, you’ve opened the door for me to come in.”

CWC, and its LIME Caribbean affiliate, were not among the companies that entered the initial 2009 BTC privatisation ‘beauty contest’. Nor were they among the four shortlisted bidders that made it through to the final round.

David Shaw, LIME’s then-chief executive, told Tribune Business in 2011 that CWC initially decided not to enter the process because it was too focused on its restructuring elsewhere in the Caribbean.

That, though, went swifter than planned, and CWC/LIME approached the Government in early 2010 to see whether there was any opportunity to participate.

Julian Francis, BTC’s former chairman and the head of its privatisation committee, told this newspaper at the time that it had worked hard to conclude a deal with the lead bidder of the four finalists, the JP Morgan/Vodafone combination.

However, an agreement was not reached because Vodafone was unwilling to put ‘skin in the game’ by taking an equity stake in the bid, creating fears that it could suddenly exit a management contract and leave BTC exposed without an offering partner.

With all four bids rejected, or dropped out, Mr Francis said it was only then that CWC came into the equation, dispelling the perception harboured by some that the Government was running two parallel privatisation processes.

Mr Wilson, meanwhile, indicated to Tribune Business that his conciliatory remarks towards CWC last Wednesday were intended primarily for consumption by the UK stock market, and investor and analyst community.

This, he added, was done to ensure there was no ‘knee jerk’ reaction to the deal that could send CWC’s stock price tumbling.

And he also dispelled the suggestion, put to him by Tribune Business, that The BTC Foundation’s founder could dissolve this entity at any time and take possession of the assets - namely the 2 per cent stake.

That would have caused major problems if the Government is the founder, but Mr Wilson said: “That is impossible in this case. No one can disturb this. There is no doubt.”

Mr Wilson was also at great pains to talk up the negotiating committee’s, and government’s ‘success’ in getting CWC to agree to the revised deal and place those shares in trust for the benefit of social causes, the crime fight and telecommunications technology.

“I don’t care how you skin the cat; this is a very material transaction in the history of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas,” he told Tribune Business. “Sometimes, Bahamians and people who love the country would do best to say: ‘Well done’ and move on.”

Repeating this theme several times to Tribune Business, the Sunshine Holdings chairman added: “No juxtaposition of stuff, taking things out of context, is going to overcome the fact this is a significant and positive transaction for the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.

“No amount of spin can conceal the fact that this is a very material and positive thing for the Bahamas.”

Again, an explanation as to why this was so was not forthcoming, although Mr Wilson promised he was going to detail this on the radio yesterday.