business@tribunemedia.net
THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 2025
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Opposition leader pledges Business Licence reforms t 1JOUBSE * MM FOE FTUJNBUJOH UVSOPWFS t "OE SFMBY N NBOEBUPSZ BVEJUT t $PNQBOJFT TBZ JU T AUPP POFSPVT By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Opposition’s leader yesterday pledged to reform the now-mandatory Business Licence audit for high turnover firms and abolish the practice of estimating the upcoming year’s turnover if elected to office. Michael Pintard told Tribune Business there are “numerous types of businesses”, such as construction companies, which “cannot accurately speculate” what their top-line revenue will be for the next 12 months based on prioryear income due to inconsistencies associated with work and contracts in their industry. With Bahamian businesses set to pay Business Licence fees based on estimated 2025 turnover by Monday, March 31, he said private sector feedback suggested this and other aspects of the existing Business Licence regime are “too onerous” and imposing extra costs on already-struggling companies. Promising that an administration led by himself would seek to alleviate this burden and improve The Bahamas’ ease of doing business, Mr Pintard told this newspaper he would also relax the requirement for companies with annual turnover exceeding to produce audited annual financial statements to verify their figures and fee payments are accurate. Suggesting that a “review”, which firms with turnover between $250,000 to $5m must undergo, would suffice for many businesses, he challenged why a full audit is necessary given that the Business Licence fee is paid solely on top-line revenue and nothing else. The Opposition leader, signalling that he would be prepared to scale-down the verification to focus on turnover alone, suggested the Government’s mandatory audit demand was based on the need to gather data ahead of extending corporate income tax to the wider Bahamian economy and not just the few entities that are part of corporate groups generating 750m euros or more in annual turnover.
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‘Chaos and discord’ erupt at Old Bahama Bay hotel By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
t $POEP PXOFS HSPVQ mHIUT NBOBHFNFOU DIBOHF A FURIOUS battle yesterday erupted over Grand Bahama’s Old Bahama Bay t 8PO U WBDBUF UPNPSSPX resort as a group of its condo owners vowed to resist moves EFTQJUF SFDFJWJOH OPUJDF to replace them as the management company for the t A'FBS BOE BOYJFUZ DBVTFE property. John MacDonald, president GPS TUBGG WFOEPST of Island Ventures Resort and Club (IVRC), the entity formed by the 73 condo owners to keep the hotel open following Ginn’s 2011 default, urged Old Bahama Bay’s owner/management company not to proceed with its planned Friday takeover as it “will not be vacating said premises”. And, warning that IVRC would involve the police and launch Supreme Court legal action, he accused Lubert Adler-Old Bahama Bay (LRA-OBB), the vehicle that owns the West End-based hotel, of inflicting “emotional
OLD BAHAMA BAY
distress” on 100 staff, vendors and the condo owners due to the uncertainty created by its ambitions to take back management control from IVRC. However, Michael Scott KC, LRA-OBB’s attorney, in a March 26, 2025, letter to Lennox Paton, legal representatives for IVRC, countered that the latter’s failure to smoothly handover Old Bahama Bay and its amenities - despite being given more than the required four weeks’ notice that its licence was to be terminated by March 28, 2025 - is responsible for the “chaos and discord” now occurring. Pointing out that IVRC had been granted a ‘bare licence’, and not a lease, to operate Old Bahama Bay, its marinas, restaurants and other facilities, he demanded that it “fulfill their legal employer obligations” and accused it of owing almost $600,000 in
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Investor fails to recover $7.5m on failed Rose Isl. Ritz-Carlton By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A BAHAMAS-BASED investor has failed to recover the outstanding $7.5m they were allegedly owed for selling land to the now-abandoned Ritz-Carlton project on Rose Island. Senior justice Deborah Fraser, in a March 25, 2025, dismissed the Lovejoy family’s claim for breach of contract against the development’s initial holding company and successors after she found they took too long to initiate
legal action and thus became “statute-barred” under the Limitations Act. She also criticised the “ambiguity” of the claim, and “the insufficiency of the evidence” to back it. The dispute dates back more than 18 years to when Laurie Lovejoy, and his Rose Island Beach and Harbour Club vehicle, agreed to sell Rose Island real estate to the development entity for the Ritz-Carlton project, RC Rose Island Hotel Company. The $22m purchase/ sales price was split between a $14.5m cash payment, which he received, while the remaining $7.5m was to be paid by
the issuance of Class D shares in the project. The resort development was to be financed by an $80m loan from Lehman Brothers, which was secured on its Rose Island real estate. However, the “substantial profits” anticipated by Mr Lovejoy and his family never materialised due to the ‘credit crunch’, and the subsequent 2008-2009 financial crisis and recession, which saw Lehman Brothers collapse and enter liquidation. The $80m loan, and Rose Island collateral security, ended up in the hands of Lehman Brothers’ liquidators and the Class D shares in the
Ritz-Carlton project became “worthless” as a result. The loan, and rights to the collateral, were transferred and sold between various corporate entities before ultimately being acquired by Hotel Consult Inc, the investor seeking to redevelop the former Paradise Harbour Club into a resort. The Central Bank of The Bahamas, in a May 2021 report, said Hotel Consult Inc planned to develop a hotel on the 107 acres it had acquired on Rose Island for just $10.3m - a price more
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PM: We will comply on tax but we will fight for fairness By FAY SIMMONS Tribune Business Reporter jsimmons@tribunemedia.net PRIME Minister Philip Davis said although the country will “always comply” with international tax regimes, the nation will continue to advocate for fair treatment. Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Mr Davis said the amendments to the
Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information Bill will ensure the country’s continued adherence to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reporting standards. “The Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (Amendment) Bill 2025 further strengthens
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Pintard demands House debate on BPL reforms BY ANNELIA NIXON Tribune Business Reporter anixon@tribunemedia.net FNM leader Michael Pintard hit out at the BPL tendering process yesterday, saying “we don’t see the competitive bidding”. He said: “All of us in here, we are elected to serve the Bahamian people in general. You’re not elected to serve a select group of Bahamians. We were accused by no less than the leadership of the Progressive Liberal Party that we’re the party of elitists, yet their policies seem to support a narrow group of already generationally wealthy Bahamians. And their pattern of taking Bahamian assets, not allowing multiple Bahamians to
MICHAEL PINTARD compete for contracts on how to manage and monetise those assets again, show that their rhetoric about working for the empowerment of all Bahamians is just that. It’s rhetoric. It’s not supported by concrete action. He added: “Where is the competitive bidding that
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