The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A prominent QC yesterday dismissed Sarkis Izmirlian’s latest bid to reacquire the $3.5 billion Baha Mar project, saying: “He’s too late to the party.”

Wayne Munroe QC, who represents the Gaming Board and other government agency creditors of Baha Mar, told Tribune Business that the original developer’s latest highly-publicised offer “should not be taken seriously”.

Questioning why Mr Izmirlian had not made such a bid through the formal Baha Mar sales process run by the resort’s Deloitte & Touche receivers, Mr Munroe suggested the latest offer was too late to affect the resolution agreed by the Government and China for the stalled development.

“He was invited to the party and came after it was over,” the QC told Tribune Business. “I don’t think anyone is really taking him seriously. Talk is cheap; money buys land.”

Pointing out that the Supreme Court had approved the sales process run by the China Export-Import Bank’s receiver agents, Mr Munroe said the time for Mr Izmirlian to submit the ‘knock out’ offer he unveiled this week was then.

“He had an opportunity to it do it then; to submit an offer that was higher than anyone else’s, and he didn’t,” Mr Munroe said of Mr Izmirlian, implying that his fresh bid was too little, too late by several months.

“I don’t get how he’s coming so late to a party that he was invited to.... I don’t regard this as a bona fide, serious offer. I regard it as more talk.”

Tribune Business, though, previously reported Mr Izmirlian’s complaints that the terms and conditions set for the sales process seemed designed to discourage, and even prevent, a bid by himself.

There were restrictions on speaking to former Baha Mar executives and others intimately involved with the project that he felt it was impossible for him to comply with, while the sales process may also have compromised the $192 million claim against the project’s general contractor.

And Mr Izmirlian’s October 10, 2016, letter to the China Export-Import Bank’s vice-chairman implied that he felt he had been subject to ‘double standards’ treatment in the sales process.

At the heart of his complaint is the contents of a recent judgment by Justice Ian Winder, which disclosed that Baha Mar’s proposed purchaser - believed to be a Chinese group or consortium - came from ‘outside’ the formal sales process.

This, Mr Izmirlian hinted, was contrary to the rejections his previous ‘outside the process’ bids received, and the insistence by the Deloitte & Touche receivers that he had to participate in the court-approved structure to be considered a player.

Mr Munroe, though, said the receivers, especially Raymond Winder, Deloitte & Touche (Bahamas) managing partner, had publicly encouraged Mr Izmirlian to participate, saying he was “welcome to bid”.

And Prime Minister Perry Christie also encouraged Mr Izmirlian to bid, and the receivers to accommodate him. Mr Munroe said yesterday that he disagreed with these comments from the Prime Minister, as he “had no ability to tell the receivers to do such a thing”.

The QC added: “He [Mr Izmirlian] was entitled to participate, and if he was serious he would have bid then.”

“No one was keeping him from any party. In the very beginning the bank was willing to lend him $600 million, and all he had to do was give a personal guarantee for $150-$175 million. He said the Bahamian government should do that. He can’t be taken seriously.”

Baha Mar’s original developer, in his October 10 letter to the secured creditor, promised that his offer would beat the price submitted by any rival bidder, including the proposed purchaser.

Apart from pledging to defeat all-comers in terms of price, Mr Izmirlian promised to make ‘bona fide’ Bahamian creditors ‘whole’, and pay all former Bahamian and expatriate Baha Mar staff ‘whole’.

Mr Izmirlian said the necessary financing for his offer was already in place, although he did not specify the source(s), and promised to drop all legal actions over Baha Mar in the Bahamian courts if a deal could be struck.

However, Mr Munroe argued that Mr Izmirlian’s latest gambit would have little to no impact, as the China Export-Import Bank and its receivers, together with the Government, were too far down the road with their Baha Mar solution.

“The receivers have, pursuant to the sales process, agreed to sell to a buyer,” he said. “The receiver/managers got the sale, and had the sale approved by the court. There’s a sale.”

The Government and China Export-Import Bank have also agreed to a ‘Heads of Terms’ for Baha Mar’s construction completion, something that is required before any buyer will consummate a purchase.

“The Government agreement has to do with its approval of the buyer, and the condition that Bahamian creditors be paid for it to be approved,” Mr Munroe added.

Suggesting that Mr Izmirlian would make further announcements in the run-up to Baha Mar’s completion and opening, Mr Munroe said the developer was playing to Bahamian public opinion.

He even suggested Mr Izmirlian was “trying to affect the political fortunes” of the Government in the upcoming election, adding: “Rich men do things like that.”

However, with the former Baha Mar companies now placed into full liquidation, Mr Izmirlian and his family now face the loss of their $800-$900 million equity investment in a project they have been involved with for 13 years.

“I understand it clearly, having been involved in it [Baha Mar] for a while, why he has taken this position,” Mr Munroe told Tribune Business of Mr Izmirlian.

“He overplayed his hand, and got into a position he couldn’t recover from. I suspect a lot of it now is spite.”