Published On:Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Business Reporter

crobards@tribunemedia.net

Three times per week for four hours Marcellus Miller is attached to a dialysis machine in a hospital to clean his blood. He is stricken with diabetes, and consequently kidney failure, and also suffers from hypertension.

However, through his frequent hospital visits and bad days due to his condition, Mr Miller found the time and strength over almost three years to build the business he had always dreamt of owning.

Then, in a heartbeat, it was stripped from him by the very entity whose business it is to help small entrepreneurs build those dreams.

Mr Miller created Marcy’s Kitchen in his mind, then transferred those ideas to a business plan.  And after more than one and a half years of grovelling to airport officials to secure a space for Marcy’s, he signed the lease to open his restaurant in the Lynden Pindling International Airport’s domestic departure lounge.

However, as with many small entrepreneurs (and diabetics), Mr Miller suffered a common setback - he had no money.

Having secured the lease and formed his business plan, Mr Miller approached the Bahamas Entrepreneurial Venture Fund, a $1million per year government-sponsored fund, to assist him in building Marcy’s Kitchen from the ground up.

After presenting his idea to the fund, administrators Baker, Tilly, Gomez, agreed to finance the development of Marcy’s Kitchen.

Appointed administrators, Jerome Gomez and Een Colebrooke, created the company Marcy’s Kitchen Grab and Go Limited, signed themselves on as executives in the company and gave the fund 80 per cent of the share in the business, leaving Mr Miller with 20 per cent equity stake.

The fund also asked that a board be formed consisting of five members, two of which would be nominated by Mr Miller, while he, Mr Gomez and Mr Colebrooke made up the final three.

And so construction and renovations began in the domestic departure lounge of LPIA  with Mr Miller the frontman on the project, watching his dream take form.

It was only three weeks after the dust cleared and the first customers took receipt of Mr Miller’s - chief executive of the company and head chef - Bahamian food, that the fund administrators began the processes of ousting him from the restaurant that held his shortened name.

According to him, the fund administrators first attempted to have his name removed from the lease he fervently convinced the Nassau Airport Development Company to give an “underqualified”, but determined cook.

After he was made aware that the fund was attempting to remove him from the lease, he approached Director of Economic Planning at the Ministry of Finance, Simon Wilson, to eke out what the fund’s relationship should be to the businesses they finance - specifically to his.

According to Mr Miller, he was informed by Mr Wilson to remove Mr Gomez and Mr Colebrooke as directors of the company, ensure the controlling shares (at least 51 per cent) is turned over to Marcy's Kitchen and conduct an official review of all signed documents between the Bahamas Venture Capital and Marcy’s Kitchen.

When Mr Miller approached the fund after undertaking Mr Wilson’s suggestion, days later he was voted out of his company by Mr Gomez and Mr Colebrooke - the board that never became five members.

And he received a termination letter stating:  

“We write to advise you that the Bahamas Entrepreneurial fund Ltd, the majority shareholder of Marcy’s kitchen grab and go Ltd have effective Friday, July 2, 2010, terminated your employment as Chief Operating Officer of the company.

“You are also removed as VP and a director of Marcy’s kitchen Grab and Go Ltd effective the same date. You will, however, retain your role as a shareholder in the company.

“We have attached a copy of the written consent of the Bahamas Entrepreneurial Venture fund removing you from your position in the company for your records.”

The letter was signed by Een Colebrooke “President”.

In less than one month Mr Miller built his dream and watched the very fund that made it possible strip it from him with no explanation.

Since being ousted, Mr Miller has sought to find answers to why after only three weeks he saw his dream live, thrive and die.

He maintains the business was doing 69 per cent more in sales per day than the fund administrators thought it would.

Now, Mr Gomez and Mr Colebrook have changed Marcy’s name to Island Cafe and changed the menu Mr Miller worked tirelessly to create.

Since his removal, he has sought answers from Minister of Finance, Zhivargo Laing, in eight emails sent over 11 days telling him: “I have been working tirelessly to get this business off the ground and in good working order. This has been an outrageous and displeasing experience working with so-called professional and prudent people. I am further angered by the raid and their attempts to ‘take-over’.”

Mr Laing replied: “I am quite disturbed about the way this matter is going.  I am not encouraged by reports brought to me on either side, so I have asked for a meeting soon.”

According to Mr Miller, Mr Laing told him there was nothing he could do to help.

He is now awaiting a reply from the Office of the Prime Minister to get the answers on how the fund created by government to help entrepreneurs build their own businesses, could take his over only weeks after its opening. In the end, offering the diabetic, footing $800 medication costs per month, $300 every three months.