State controls key Miami real estate.
TT Guardian.
If you thought that the International Waterfront Centre in downtown Port-of-Spain was the only high-rise, oceanfront property owned by the Government and people of Trinidad and Tobago, you would be wrong.
Government and private sector sources last night confirmed that a high-rise hotel and condominium development in Fort Lauderdale called W Fort Lauderdale and The Residences, which opened on June 4, is an asset of Clico, the insurance company which the Government seized control of following the January 30 Memorandum of Understanding between Finance Minister Karen Tesheira and former CL Financial boss Lawrence Duprey.
Duprey is a principal and the chairman of the DYL group, the development company behind CL Financial's building projects in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. The other principal is John Yanopoulos, DYL's chief executive, who was said to be in meetings or unavailable when the Guardian called his Miami office three times yesterday. The W Fort Lauderdale project features two 23-storey towers facing the Atlantic Ocean with 517 rooms in total—346 rooms in the hotel and 171 condominiums. The developers estimated that the hotel and condominium project would have been opened in December 2006 at a cost of US$220 million.
While CL Financial is described as being a project equity sponsor of the DYL Group, which is responsible for four Florida building projects, local sources confirmed last night that the W Hotel was a Clico asset “which would be extremely valuable once the international financial markets bounce back.”
The other CL Financial projects in Florida which are now owned or controlled by the Government and people of T&T are: n Infinity at Brickell, a 56-story luxury condominium with 459 residences and more than 42,000 square feet of office-condominium space, and 6,000 square feet of high-end retail space;
n Europa by-the-sea with 50 ultra luxury residences in Fort Lauderdale;
n Infinity II, a 65-storey skyscraper located in the southern Brickell Financial District, which is expected to be completed this year. It’s estimated that these three properties, which were funded mostly by British American and by debt that CL Financial took on, are worth more than US$300 million.
In exchange for an initial infusion of $1.2 billion in cash and a commitment to support Clico’s policyholders and depositors, the MOU allowed the Central Bank to take control of CIB under section 44D of the Central Bank Act. Under the MOU, Duprey also agreed to divest CL Financial assets to help fund Clico statutory fund deficit, estimated at over $5 billion. CL Financial also agreed to divest itself of all of its 55 per cent stake in Republic Bank Limited and its 56 per cent stake in Methanol Holdings Trinidad Limited (MHTL).
In a new agreement, signed by the Government on June 5, the Government seized control of CL Financial, installing four directors on a new seven-member board to be led by former Central Bank Governor Dr Euric Bobb.
The main aim of the new agreement, sources said, was to restructure CL Financial’s debt which is estimated at $13 million. Sources said 70 per cent of the CL Financial debt was held by local financial institutions.
Contacted for comment last week on CL Financial’s debt position, Bobb said by e-mail: “I dare say that the detail you request is not the kind of information that any company will readily disclose unless where required for regulatory purposes or in connection with raising debt or equity.”
