NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Former Deputy Prime Minister K Peter Turnquest has once again defended the Minnis administration’s acquisition of the Grand Lucayan resort, noting that in the face of what could have been another Royal Oasis incident, the government did not have the luxury of simply “sitting on the sidelines.”
Turnquest, who was a panelist at the Grand Bahama Business Outlook conference, said he was happy to hear that progress was being made towards finalizing the sale of the property.
Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper revealed during his presentation to the outlook conference that five bidders have now been invited to make presentations to the Board of Lucayan Renewal Holdings.
Cooper has repeatedly criticized the Grand Lucayan deal as an “egregiously bad” one that has cost taxpayers roughly $200 million so far.
The Minnis administration purchased the Grand Lucayan resort from Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa in August 2018 for $65 million and made plans to sell the property to Royal Caribbean and ITM for its redevelopment, but the deal was never concluded. Back in December, the government announced that its agreement with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines/ITM Group for the acquisition of the Grand Lucayan resort had been canceled.
Turnquest said: “The fact of the matter is that Hutchison Whampoa, despite what we may think of them, have invested in that property both in terms of physical infrastructure and human resource support over many years. They have invested millions of dollars and lost a lot of money. The Government didn’t have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines.
“I am happy to hear that there are plans to finalize the sale of the property. That was always the intent. It was never the intention to hold that property and quite frankly we held onto it longer than we would have liked to. The pandemic came and despite what we may think it held up a lot of work.”
Turnquest said that Hutchison Whampoa being allowed to keep all the insurance proceeds it received for Hurricane Matthew-related damage at the Grand Lucayan was “all a part of the negotiation”, with the conglomerate also being allowed to keep insurance proceeds related to the Grand Bahama International Airport.
“They suffered a loss,” he said.
“We needed the asset. There is a happy medium there that needs to be negotiated. I will leave it to history to determine whether the right deal was made. The intention was to always take control of the asset so that we as a government and as a people on Grand Bahama could determine the future of our economy,” said Turnquest.
He added: “The threat to close it down was real. It wasn’t an innocent threat. Putting those persons out of work and mothballing that entire property would have been akin to what has happened at Royal Oasis and we could not allow that to happen.”
The 427-acre Royal Oasis Resort property was abruptly shut down in 2004 following Hurricane Frances. Its closure resulted in Grand Bahama’s unemployment numbers skyrocketing, with more than 1,000 persons being left jobless.
The property was sold to the Harcourt Development Group, an Irish investment group for $33 million in 2007, just before the 2008 recession and remains shuttered.
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