Now that the Ninth Amendment has been passed - forever enshrining public ownership of public utilities - government has to address itself to the issue of compensation. How much will the Ashcroft Alliance receive for its Telemedia shares which were acquired and how much will the Fortis group receive for BEL?
Well, the final figure is in for Telemedia. It comes from a recognized firm of international consultants - and their figure is almost exactly a tenth of what the Alliance's agents had said it would be. Those local agents have been warning of a compensation package of six hundred million Belize dollars.
At Friday's House Sitting, The Prime Minister said it is a far, far cry from that:..
Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister of Belize
"The final valuation report is just in and it's been sent to the previous majority owners of Telemedia. We contracted a firm from abroad - absolutely top rate, first class, professional valuers to do the valuation. The name of the firm is NERA, and I will tell you how good they are: when we acquired from Fortis who you think Fortis went to do the valuation on their behalf, NERA! NERA had to
tell them sorry, government has already hired us. So we hired NERA for both the Telemedia and the BEL valuation. That $300 million that Ashcroft is talking about. Let me tell you what NERA's valuation is. NERA, professional as they are, said they are two scenarios: Remember that 25 million US dollars that BTL borrowed from Ashcroft's Belize Bank that, ah, when they went to try and re-finance under us, a bank said, our lawyers, First Caribbean have told us that that loan is illegal. Well, in the event that the court finds that the loan is legal, it affects the valuation, so NERA has given two valuations: one if the loan is illegal; one if the loan is not illegal. Well, let me tell you what the lower valuation is if you have to take into account paying back that loan: 71.3 million Belize dollars! That is what NERA said BTL is worth. And if you don't include that loan then it goes up to $116.4 million dollars, Belize dollars! The higher one, I think it works out to $1.46 a share. And if you want to know how we could have sold it for $5.00 a share when NERA said when we acquired it, it was only worth $1.46 a share, because we sold it after we took it over and cleaned up the mess and turned it once again into a properly run, profitable company that is not sending all the money to management companies in London, also owned by Chichester. But let us be clear, Mr. Speaker if it is $71.3 million dollars, the amount of shares that we already sold is $75 million dollars, which is in a lockbox. So explain to me where the debt is coming from to pay for it?"
"And, man, suppose the court finds that the NERA valuation has to go up? You could ever see how it go up….(to 600 million)?"
Despite waving it on the House floor, the Prime Minister today told us that his government - by the terms of its contract with NERA - cannot make a public disclosure of the document and its specifics while compensation is still unsettled.
We also requested it from the attorney for one of the Ashcroft Alliance's Shareholders, Godfrey Smith who represents Sunshine Holdings. He said he would ask his client, but has not gotten back to us.
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