The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian QC yesterday likened buyer interest in the $3.5 billion Baha Mar property to “a beauty parade”, while its former developer was left distinctly unimpressed by the latest winding-up petition adjournment.

The Government yesterday obtained a second delay to the Baha Mar winding-up hearing, this time pushing it back by more than two months to February 1, 2016, next year.

Supreme Court Justice Ian Winder granted the request by Attorney General’s Office counsel, Loren Klein, who said the Government did not want to proceed with an immediate winding up due to developments which have occurred since the beleaguered $3.5 billion Cable Beach development was placed into provisional liquidation, then receivership.

Prime Minister Perry Christie said recently that he was “impressed” with the names of investors who are in talks with the China Export-Import bank about taking over the $3.5 billion project, among them Sir Sol Kerzner and his partner, Island Capital Group principal, Andrew Farkas.

He also added that the bank had given the assurance that it would provide interim funding to its Deloitte & Touche receivers.

Outside court yesterday, Wayne Munroe QC said: “It’s been said that there has been a beauty parade of persons going and expressing interest; some of it has met the press.

“I would have thought with such a resort there would clearly be people interested, and the bank would clearly be interested in getting some resolution for its massive investment.”

However, Sarkis Izmirlian, Baha Mar’s original developer, was left less than impressed by yesterday’s legal manoeverings.

A statement issued in the name of his BMD Holdings vehicle said: “The developer remains firm in the belief that it is in the best interests of the Bahamas for Baha Mar to be completed properly and opened as soon as possible.

“The developer has never viewed a winding up or liquidation of Baha Mar as an attractive outcome for the Bahamas. The developer remains committed to seeking a consensual resolution of the issues that have resulted in Baha Mar not being able to open, so many jobs being lost, and so many people and businesses suffering economic consequences.

“Baha Mar was never meant to be about political and legal machinations, nor about putting one party’s self interests ahead of what is best for the project and the Bahamas.”

Baha Mar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a US Bankruptcy Court for 15 of its companies on June 29, blaming the resort’s contractor, China Construction America (CCA), for construction delays that caused it to miss previous opening deadlines. The resort also took legal action against CCA’s parent company, China State Construction Engineering Corporation, in the English High Court.

On July 1, US Judge Kevin Carey approved the resort’s request to begin tapping into $80m in financing to keep the it on track while it undergoes Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in that state.

However, the Delaware judge’s approval of the debtor-in-possession financing request was conditional on the approval of the Bahamas Supreme Court.

Justice Winder, who presided over Baha Mar’s application for the foreign court’s ruling to take effect, dismissed that request. And Judge Carey then threw out the Chapter 11 protection.

The Government subsequently filed a petition for the winding-up of Baha Mar, with Justice Winder approving the appointment of joint provisional liquidators, Ed Rahming and and the UK-based Alix Partners duo of Nick Cropper and Alastair Beveridge, to prevent the “dissipation of assets”.