Atlantis Dubai

Five years after resort operator Kerzner International Holdings Ltd. was taken private in a $4 billion buyout by a group of big-name investors—including Goldman Sachs GroupInc.’s Whitehall funds and Colony Capital LLC—the deal has turned into a bad bet.

Kerzner’s buyers, which also included Dubai World investment arm Istithmar World and members of Chairman Sol Kerzner’s family, contributed roughly $1.5 billion of equity in the 2006 deal.

But the value of that stake has greatly eroded as the company has struggled with the weak global economy and the hefty $2.5 billion in debt it took on to finance the buyout.

Kerzner last week disclosed it will forfeit its flagship Atlantis resort in the Bahamas and two smaller resorts to lender Brookfield Asset Management Inc. after failing to refinance or extend that $2.5 billion of debt, which came due Sept. 9. Kerzner will continue to manage the resorts.

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Jamaicans in the diaspora have raised concerns that the uncertainty hanging over the Bruce Golding administration could erode confidence in Jamaica among overseas investors.

Irwine Clare, a radio talk-show host and head of the New York-based Caribbean Immigration Service, said, with Jamaica actively courting investors overseas, the quandary over Golding’s tenure could not have come at a worst time.
Clare said a speedy leadership change is needed to send a strong signal to investors that Jamaica remains open for business.

In expressing his personal views, senior member of the Jamaican Canadian Association, Philip Mascoll, said the uncertainty surrounding Golding’s resignation highlights bad governance.

Mascoll said Golding must urgently move to tell the country in clear terms about his future as Prime Minister and leader of the Jamaica Labour Party.

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Chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago Securities Exchange Commission Deborah Thomas-Felix, underscored the fact that effective regulators in this globalised world should be provided with the much need resources to conduct effective surveillance and monitori

An urgent need for cross-border co-operation among regulators on the takeovers and acquisitions of companies within CARICOM has prompted heads of regional securities and exchange commissions to work on a common policy to govern such transactions.

Chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago Securities Exchange Commission Deborah Thomas-Felix said at a regulators roundtable during the T&T Unit Trust Corporation’s recent Inaugural Investor Conference, that regional regulators were close to developing the common code and choice of law rules, which were now in the final stages of development.

Speaking on the theme: Reset Your Investment Strategy, held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Port-of-Spain, Thomas-Felix said the aim was to streamline the way companies with large capital reserves, seeking to buy more wealth, did so. “Regulators need to combine their strengths to carefully monitor and manage risks by information sharing in order to ensure greater efficiency, transparency and integrity in the market. Ultimately, the burden placed upon regulators globally, is to bring order and sanity back to the table; all for the sake of renewed investor confidence and growth of the economy,” she said.

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The Government is moving to cross the final parliamentary hurdle in order to issue payments to Clico policyholders as Finance Minister Winston Dookeran is expected to present two bills for debate in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. One bill seeks to buy out certain rights held by Clico and British American Insurance policyholders, while the other seeks to prevent policyholders from starting or continuing any legal action against the Central Bank for recovery of monies.This attempt by the Government to facilitate the recovery of the investments made by thousands of locals in the insurance companies, which are owned by CL Financial, comes more than a year after Finance Minister Winston Dookeran announced his 20-year, zero-coupon idea in last year’s budget.

Clico and sister company British American Insurance collapsed in January 2009 with Clico receiving a $5.1 billion bailout from the Government between February 2009 and May 2010. Policyholder groups have complained about the lack of consultation and length of time it has taken the Government to table a concrete proposal for those with investments of more than $75,000 in Clico. Debate on the Central Bank (Amendment) Bill and the Purchase of Certain Rights and Validation Bill 2011is expected to begin on Wednesday. The Purchase of Certain Rights and Validation Bill 2011 seeks to “provide for the purchase of certain rights” of the holders of short-term investment products issued by  Colonial Life Insurance Company (Trinidad) Ltd and British American Insurance Co.

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LIME, the Caribbean arm of the Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) group, has announced that it will modernize its mobile network in 12 different territories in the Caribbean. Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) will facilitate this modernization by deploying its latest core network and multi-standard radio base stations RBS 6000, enhancing the capabilities of LIME’s network. Thanks to this, improved mobile broadband services will be provided for users in Anguilla, Antigua, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Turks and Caicos.

The CWC group provides mobile services on all of the Caribbean islands, meaning that all islanders across the region who are LIME customers will benefit from the network modernization, enjoying fast and seamless connections on their smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. Furthermore, people traveling to the islands for business or on holiday will benefit from the latest mobile broadband services and fast internet access they would expect from any metropolitan network.

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Barbados Min. of Finance Christopher Sinckler plans to evaluate progress of the Chinese government's pledge to invest more than BDS$1bn in the region.

Next Monday (September 12), will see government officials, entrepreneurs, representatives from relevant regional organizations from both China and the Caribbean come together to come up with cooperation and development initiatives that will significantly promote economic and trade exchanges and cooperation between the two.

Trinidad and Tobago is the main regional partner for the forum and its Minister of Trade and Industry, Stephen Cadiz, has said that the Forum, under the theme “Cooperation, Development Win-for-all”, would focus on key economic areas. These include, and are not limited to – Tourism, Infrastructure, Finance and Agribusiness. These areas were selected based upon careful analysis of the region’s developmental needs and the expertise of the People’s Republic of China.

The China Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum is the highest level of economic and trade dialogue mechanism between the two sides, whose mission is to facilitate trade and economic cooperation for common development. The first two Forums were successfully concluded in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica in February 2005 and in Xiamen, China in September 2007.

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GEORGETOWN, Guyana — Guyana has asked the United Nations to extend the South American country’s maritime boundary to allow it to exploit an offshore basin believed rich in oil and natural gas deposits.

Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett says the government has submitted documents applying for the extension beyond its current 200-mile (322-kilometer) exclusive economic zone.

U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea allows participating states to potentially extend their existing sea boundaries by 150 miles (241 kilometers).

The foreign minister said Wednesday that Guyana will have to negotiate new boundaries with neighboring states if its application succeeds. She says the country has “a strong case.”

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Caribbean television stations, video stores, movie theatres, and even video pirates could find their businesses under threat when Netflix, the world’s largest Internet movie and TV series subscription service starts rolling out its service in the Caribbean from September 12.

According to Netflix, the United States-based movie giant who drove its larger more established rival Blockbuster into the ground within a few years of its existence, subscribers will be able received popular movies and television series streamed from Netflix straight to their computers and even game consoles and other Internet connected devices for a single monthly price from next week.

This online presence in the Caribbean will mark the final stage of their service roll-out, which started in Brazil on September 5 and continued its launch across 43 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean over the past week.

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After closing its doors in 2003, the popular fast food restaurant McDonald’s is set to re-enter the T&T market. This time, though, the world’s largest chain of hamburger restaurant, which is headquartered in United States, would be operated by its master franchise partner Arcos Dorados. In an interview yesterday, Milagros Bermudez, T&T market manager of Arcos Dorados, the Latin American McDonald’s restaurant franchisee that listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange on April 14, said T&T could experience McDonald’s as early as the end of September or the beginning of October. She also promised locals that they would have the opportunity to enjoy diverse menus and sauces, inclusive of local dishes.

Bermudez said McDonald’s would be offering its core products in addition to innovative menus that would include its specialised Happy Meals which contain less than 600 calories and less sodium and salt for healthy eaters. Asked what were some of the prospects that encouraged them to reopen the restaurant in T&T: Bermudez said: “Why not T&T? The company did a two-year comprehensive feasibility study to assess the viability of T&T for McDonald’s and the decision to open in T&T was a strategic business decision.” She stated Arcos Dorados recognised that T&T had talented people who would be able to grow the business successfully.

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The island nation of Cuba is scrambling to secure access to what it believe to be about 5 billion barrels of oil lying deep under the ocean off its northern coast.  A massive drilling rig is en route to Cuba and plans to start drilling in a matter of months.

Meanwhile, several groups in the United States are sufficiently concerned about the risks of another oil spill that is dispatching a group of quasi-diplomats to Cuba on a fact-finding mission as early as tomorrow, according to reports in Dow Jones.

U.S. officials believe Cuba’s waters could contain more than 5 billion barrels of undiscovered oil.  Cuba will begin a plan to tap its offshore oil later this year, when a consortium led by Spanish company Repsol YPF S.A. plans to start drilling a well in more than 5,500 feet of water off the country’s northern coast, which will likely trigger a race to set up production in Cuban waters, presuming Repsol finds oil.

Read more: http://onforb.es/oSfi50