The Tribune

BY NEIL HARTNELL

TRIBUNE Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

THE WARRING Old Bahama Bay parties were last night said to be locked “in a Mexican stand-off” with efforts to repossess the resort described as “in the process” and yet to successfully conclude.

Michael Scott KC, attorney for the hotel’s two corporate owners, LRA-OBB and Resort Holdings, accused Grand Bahama police officers of “running interference” on behalf of Island Ventures Resort and Club (IVRC), the management vehicle formed by a group of condo owners to operate the property, and preventing his clients from repossessing the asset.

Speaking as agents for LRA-OBB, which stands for Lubert Adler-Old Bahama Bay, and Resort Holdings, made at least their fourth attempt within the past 17 months to oust IVRC, he added that they remain “firmly committed to recovering possession of their premises” despite all the delays and obstacles encountered.

“My clients are fully committed to recovering possession of their property, having cancelled the licence that was in favour of IVRC,” Mr Scott blasted. “IVRC are holding over and trespsassing.”

Asked whether his clients have succeeded in ousting IVRC, he conceded that they have not. “It’s in the process,” Mr Scott told this newspaper, “because the police in Grand Bahama are running interference on behalf of IVRC and interfering with our efforts to recover possession by marching back and forth on our property with representatives of IVRC taking them on the property.

“To put it in a very Spartan way, it’s a Mexican stand-off. That notwithstanding, my clients are fully committed to recovering possession of their premises and to evict IVRC, whose bare licence to occupy and operate certain parts of the premises has been cancelled for various reasons, including non-payment of various disbursements and expenditures payable under the terms of their licence.”

Mr Scott and his clients have taken the position that, because IVRC has no lease agreement with them, it is therefore not a tenant at Old Bahama Bay. As a result, they argue that no eviction notice or Supreme Court possession order is required for LRA-OBB and Resort Holdings, and their managing agent, Reunion Cay, to reclaim operational and management control.

“The licence, in it’s totality, has always been revocable with a month’s notice,” Mr Scott reiterated. “It has been terminated, and they are holding over or trespassing on my clients’ property.”

John MacDonald, IVRC’s president, did not return Tribune Business calls before press time last night, but said in a messaged reply that he would respond once “done here with the attorneys”. IVRC was formed by Old Bahama Bay’s 73 condo owners to keep the hotel open, and its facilities and amenities operational, after its previous owner, Ginn, defaulted on its financing terms in 2011.

Lubert Adler, the investment bank that provided the seed capital and funding for Ginn’s aborted multi-billion dollar West End redevelopment, and Resort Holdings both took over the project and its real estate holdings - including Old Bahama Bay - under the conditions attached to the debt financing they provided. To ensure Old Bahama Bay remained open and functioning, they permitted IVRC to operate the property under a “bare licence” until now.

Mr McDonald previously denied to Tribune Business that IVRC had defaulted on any of its financial obligations, and the management vehicle has - up to now - successfully resisted at least three attempts by Lubert Adler and Resort Holdings to regain control over Old Bahama Bay.

Speaking after their last attempt, which took place several weeks ago in mid-July 2026, he asserted: “They came in, obviously not through the gates because otherwise we would have stopped them, and changed all the locks. When the staff got there this morning they were blocked from entering the entire resort.

““The police walked around the property with our people, we removed their locks and put ours back on, and the police told them: ‘If you do this again you’ll be hauled off in handcuffs’. They’ve been told by the police multiple times. The head superintendent told them: ‘Do it one more time and you’ll be arrested. This is is the last time’. They’ve still not been able to produce papers showing they own the property and they do not have an eviction order.” Mr Scott, though, said this is not needed.

Instead, in a recent letter to Shanta Knowles, the Royal Bahamas Police Force commissioner, he wrote that IVRC only possesses a Bare Licence agreement which was first signed in May 2019, then renewed on January 31, 2021.

This, Mr Scott added, makes IVRC just “bare occupiers” with no legal rights to Old Bahama Bay, and the licence terms permit his clients to move in and retake possession if the management firm fails to vacate upon being told to do so. He added that IVRC was given written notice to vacate almost 17 months ago, on March 26, 2025, but failed to depart by the March 28, 2025, date that was stipulated.

Meanwhile, the developer behind an ambitious $6.5bn proposal to revive the former Ginn project, and create what he projects will be 2,800 construction jobs and 6,000 permanent posts for Bahamians, yesterday told Tribune Business the latest eruption of Old Bahama Bay hostilities will not affect his wider plans.

Instead, Shane Coakley, Coakley International’s principal, told Tribune Business that the greater impact comes from the wait for the Tax Appeal Commission to rule on LRA-OBB, Resort Holdings and Reunion Cay’s challenge to the Department of Inland Revenue’s demand that they pay almost $10m in real property tax arrears.

“That whole fight has nothing to do with me; nothing at all,” Mr Coakley said of Old Bahama Bay. “That thing doesn’t disrupt me. It’s been going on way before me. It’s been going on for a long time, that dispute there. That has nothing to do with the other side.

“Whatever happens there, I hope they work it out. We’re not involved. That’s Mr McDonald and Mr [James] Culmer [Old Bahama Bay’s general manager] who has been fighting with them. That’s Lubert Adler and Resort Holdings. I don’t know what they are trying to accomplish there.”

Mr Coakley argued that Old Bahama Bay and his plans to revive the former Ginn development are “completely separate situations” and he tries to “stay away” from the former. He added that his focus is on the wait for the Tax Appeal Commission’s verdict.

The Department of Inland Revenue (DIR) had previously accepted the $26m offer by Coakley International’s affiliate, Bristol Pointe Ltd, to purchase a 1,143-acre tract featuring a significant portion of the former Ginn development’s real estate. However, the deal has been put on hold by LRA-OBB and Resorts Holdings’ challenge to the valuation of the property and, by extension, the amount of unpaid tax said to be owing.

They are arguing, before the Tax Appeal Commission, that the DIR has significantly over-priced the land’s value, and that this has resulted in them being over-charged “by more than 75 percent-plus” in real property tax billings since the so-called “great recession” of 2008-2009.

Daniel Baker, Reunion Cay’s authorised representative, in a December 17, 2025, affidavit lodged with the Tax Appeal Commission asserted that LRA-OBB and Resorts Holdings have been over-billed “by more than 57 percent” for 2024’s real property tax assessment based on the DIR’s inflated land valuations.

He alleged that appraisals conducted for Reunion Cay by the EY (Ernst & Young) accounting firm, plus Coldwell Banker Lightbourn Realty, show the true market value of the two companies’ ten collective West End land parcels is a combined $15m.

However, Mr Baker asserted that the Department of Inland Revenue is using $36m, a valuation more than double or some 140 percent higher, as the basis for calculating due real property tax which is causing the substantial over-billings.