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TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2025
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BISX-listed fund targeting $15m deal near Sandyport • Eyes end-March close on ‘failed development’ • Wants 15% storage return; readies for Bay St. • Set to seek equity capital from investors in ‘25
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A BISX-listed fund is planning to invest between $10m-$15m in transforming a “failed development” near Sandyport into a “short-term residential” complex in the latest phase of its expansion drive. Michael Anderson, president of RF Bank Bank & Trust, the Bahamas Property Fund’s investment manager and administrator, told Tribune Business it is aiming to close its latest property acquisition by the end of March with ambitions to start construction activity during the 2025 second half. Affirming that the Fund remains firmly in growth mode, as it bids to double in size to $100m
Tourism alarm for airlift over Silver Airways ‘cancellations’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net FAMILY Island tourism and hotel operators yesterday voiced alarm that some visitors were abruptly stranded in The Bahamas over the weekend when a troubled airline was forced to cancel its Orlando services. Kerry Fountain, the Bahama Out Island Promotion Board’s executive director, told Tribune Business that “of course we’re concerned” by the ongoing struggles of Silver Airways, which remains in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US, given that it has pledged to provide significant airlift capacity to multiple destinations in this nation through July 2025. “If you look at the number of seats Silver Airways has pledged to deliver between December of last year to July this year, the number is between 85,000 and 90,000 seats,” said Mr Fountain, who confirmed he was aware of the weekend
KERRY FOUNTAIN woes and was due to speak to the carrier yesterday. “That’s a lot of seats. And that’s just between December of last year and July of this year. Of course, if we were to lose those seats, it definitely creates a huge issue in terms of access; getting to the Family Islands from south Florida.” Mr Fountain was unable to confirm what percentage of the airlift from Florida to the Family Islands is generated by Silver Airways. However, among the destinations served from its Fort Lauderdale hub are Great Exuma,
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in property assets, he explained that the expansion strategy is simultaneously focused on diversification so that it no longer relies so heavily on the downtown Nassau corporate office space that has traditionally been its core business. With retail shopping malls also being eyed by the Fund, Mr Anderson told this newspaper it is hoping to complete construction of its $12m-$13m warehouse/storage facility near the Carmichael Road/Gladstone Road junction by either year-end or early 2026. A 15 percent internal rate of return (IRR) is being targeted from this investment, which is expected to start generating cash “from the beginning of next year”. As for Beaumont House, the Bay Street property immediately to the west of Nassau’s Straw
Market, the RF Bank & Trust chief said the Fund aims to convert the upper floors into 48 one and two-bed Airbnb-style vacation rental apartments with hopes it will start generating “real cash flow” by the 2026 third quarter once all renovations and remodelling are finished. Speaking after the Fund’s unaudited results for the 2024 full-year revealed a 36.6 percent year-overyear profits reduction, falling from $1.074m in 2023 to $681194, Mr Anderson said the financials were typical of a company in growth and/or expansion mode. And he warned that the results could change as the valuations of the Fund’s existing buildings and property holdings have yet to be completed. “There are a number of different initiatives; some underway,
MICHAEL ANDERSON some we are yet to close on. The Property Fund is a very active space at the moment, taking on additional debt, taking on new projects,” he told Tribune Business. “We’re buying a piece of property out west just over the road from Sandyport. The final contract is being finalised. It’s subject
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Egg-static: Consumers ‘crazy’ on Super Value’s price slash By NEIL HARTNELL and ANNELIA NIXON Tribune Business Reporters SUPER Value’s president yesterday said shoppers had gone “crazy” after it launched its own brand of eggs imported at a price almost two-thirds less than those imported from its regular US supplier. Debra Symonette declined to reveal where the supermarket chain had sourced some 1.296m eggs, priced at $3.79 and rising to just over $4 with VST included, from but pledged that it will continue to seek out food products that will enable it to slash costs to consumers “even lower if possible”. “Our supplies came in,” she confirmed. “We still
• Food store hails between two-thirds to 50% cut • Brings in 1.296m eggs; next supply on March 18 • Rival AML Foods also sourcing cheaper supplies didn’t reveal the exact place we got them from except it was outside the US. We’re selling them for $3.79 [a dozen]. It’s less than half of what we were selling them form and almost one-third of what we were selling them for.” At the weekend, the price of a dozen eggs in Super Value’s stores was between $9-$10. “It’s all
about pleasing the customer and getting the best possible price for them,” Ms Symonette added. “We’re happy to bring the prices way down, at least that particular price way down. “We have some on the shelves now. People seem to have already gotten the word because people are in there now like crazy
Exuma moorings ‘model’ calls for regularising and standards By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A POTENTIAL “model” for the Government’s fledgling national moorings strategy yesterday warned it was vital such facilities are “regularised and standardised” given the importance of boating tourism. Catherine Booker, secretary for the Elizabeth Harbour Community Partnership (EHCP), told Tribune Business in the wake of the now-aborted Bahamas Moorings deal that proper management and placement of such facilities is critical for preventing “over-crowding in our most beautiful spaces” due to the presence of multiple visiting vessels. EHCP, which was created more than a decade ago in 2012, has installed and oversees some 64 “eco-friendly” moorings in George Town, Exuma’s Elizabeth Harbour, with a further 37 placed by the Bahamas National Trust (BNT) due to the overlap with the Moriah Harbour Cay National Park. If done correctly, Ms Booker told this newspaper that fees charged to visiting boaters for use of these mooring fields can be a vital source of revenue for financing other harbour management
everywhere. We’re putting them out as fast as we can.” The Super Value president said the 13-store chain has imported six containers of the lowerpriced eggs. With 600 cases per container, and 30 dozen eggs per case, that translates into a supply of 1.296m eggs. “We’re going to get another supply in on the 18th,” Ms Symonette said. “There’s definitely one coming on the 18th. Maybe we’ll try to get one sooner if sales go well. Hopefully this supply will last. This has been in the making for a little over a month. We’re going to continue to try and find any source we can that provides us with a good price so we can drop the price even lower if possible.” Not to be outdone, BISX-listed AML Foods, which is Super Value’s main competitor, said it is also on the verge of providing “similarly lower”
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Cable, BTC urge ‘fiscal restraint’ from URCA By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
AN ENVIRONMENTALLY-friendly “eco” mooring system like those installed by the EHCP and BNT does not touch the seabed allowing seagrass to grow and sediment to remain undisturbed. initiatives, ensuring these facilities’ upkeep and maintenance, and injecting a potential new earnings source into local communities. “I think the Elizabeth Harbour Community Partnership model is one way to basically keep the positive economic and ecological benefits in a community,” she said. “I think there’s room for private
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CABLE Bahamas is calling on industry regulators to show “fiscal restraint” after the latter’s proposed 2025 budget expanded year-over-year by a rate more than three times’ higher than it expected. The BISX-listed communications provider, responding to the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority’s (URCA) draft annual plan, signalled it had been taken aback by the overall 17 percent budget increase across the three sectors the latter regulates when it had at most anticipated a 5 percent hike compared to 2024. Asserting that URCA seemed not to recognise “the financial challenges” faced by its licensees, whose fees finance its annual operating budget, Cable Bahamas was joined by its main rival, the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC), which voiced similar concerns in urging the regulator “to enhance operational efficiency and reduce unnecessary financial burdens on licensees”. And both carriers also questioned the need for URCA to expand beyond Nassau by
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