business@tribunemedia.net
Thursday, April 30, 2026
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550-room Hilton centrepiece of $700m Lucayan ‘tourist mecca’ BY NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A 550-room Hilton branded resort will form the core of the Grand Lucayan resort’s $700m redevelopment, it was revealed yesterday, amid assertions the project will transform Freeport into a “tourist mecca” to complement “the mega cruise port of the Caribbean”. Dupuch & Turnquest, the Bahamian law firm that represents Concord Wilshire, the Grand Bahama resort’s purchaser, in a note to clients seen by Tribune Business pledged that - unlike other private destinations reserved exclusively for cruise passengers - the 20-acre beach club to be developed by Mediterranean Shipping Company’s (MSC) cruise arm, as well as the planned resort, will be open to Bahamians and
GRAND LUCAYAN’S REDEVELOPMENT PLANS residents as well as other stopover visitors. This, it added, will “reintroduce Freeport as a new visitor destination”, with MSC possibly retaining the Grand Lucayan’s Breaker’s Cay property and rebuilding it as a 600-room resort separate
from the Hilton-branded property that Concord Wilshire will develop itself. While Breaker’s Cay and the Manor House are not included in the initial demolition, the former Reef/Memories property will be torn down.
Project to match Freeport’s ‘mega cruise port of Caribbean’ MSC’s 20-acre Beach Club open to residents, other visitors $40m deal to sell Xanadu, 28 acres to Royal Caribbean
COMMONWEALTH Bank yesterday revealed 2025 profits would have increased by around 5 percent compared to 2024 if the prior year’s loan loss provision reversals were stripped out as it adjusts to a $4m annual jump in regulatory costs. Tangela Albury, the BISXlisted lender’s chief financial officer, in a series of written replies to Tribune Business questions said last year would have represented an improvement - and not the 22.9 percent total comprehensive
income drop shown on its audited income statement had 2024’s $25.5m worth of credit impairment reversals not been included in comparative figures. She added, though, that 2025’s $67.109m in total profit, and $66.019m in total comprehensive income, represented the third successive year when Commonwealth Bank has exceeded a $65m bottom line from its “core earning engine. Ms Albury also confirmed that, despite “challenges”, the bank was able to contain growth in its general and administrative expenses to just under $1.5m, or 1.5 percent, year-over-year to
TANGELA ALBURY $97.941m. This, she added, was achieved despite having to “build in” an average $4m annual increase in regulatory costs to its business model, which has impacted
‘Sharpen’ visitor interest into bookings, hotels told BY NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net FAMILY Island resorts must “sharpen how we convert strong interest into bookings”, a leading hotelier is urging, while warning that cost pressures cannot be used “as excuses” given that value-driven visitors will offer “no sympathy”. Emanuel Alexiou, the Bahama Out Island Promotion Board's president, in address to member properties and others, said that despite the 2026 first quarter double-digit room nights sold and room revenue declines “demand is not gone” as shown by the level of traffic to its website and the customer leads provided to resorts.
“The room nights sold and room revenue data from 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 is telling us something important. Demand is not gone,” he asserted. “Interest in the Out Islands, especially from our core Miami/Fort Lauderdale market, remains strong. “And while much of our declines can be attributed to the loss of airline seats when Silver Airways ceased their operation in June last year, our conversion is inconsistent. That gap between interest and bookings is where we need to focus…. “Our January to March advertising results, and what we’re seeing heading into
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Bahamas bracing for ‘more rigorous’ financial crime test BY FAY SIMMONS Tribune Business Reporter jsimmons@tribunemedia.net THE Bahamas is bracing for a “more rigorous” examination of its anti-financial crime defences by international assessors who will now focus on whether these are operating effectively in practice. Niekia Horton, the Bahamas Financial Services Board’s (BFSB) chief executive, yesterday said both the Government and financial services industry are intensifying preparations
for the upcoming Financial Action Task Force (FATF) mutual evaluation, which will involve a visit to this nation by the body’s Caribbean affiliate. She said both regulators and industry stakeholders are working to ensure The Bahamas’ anti-money laundering and counter-terror financing compliance framework stands up to heightened scrutiny, adding that significant work is already underway to prepare for the assessment.
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Banks ‘won’t be an invisible arm’ over regulation of construction Bank chief says industry won’t be part of ‘force tactic’ To meet with contractors next week on ‘exclusivity’ plan Bad workmanship one part of home own ‘jigsaw puzzle’ BY NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@ tribunemedia.net
the amount of capital it can deploy for longer-term growth and planning initiatives. Speaking after Commonwealth Bank released its audited annual financials for 2025, Ms Albury said: “If we focused on absolute organic growth, without the impact of the one-time benefit to net profit in the prior year because of changes to loan loss estimates, it is a net profit growth of approximately 5 percent year-over-year. “We are pleased that, against historical results and with normalising operations, the bank’s core
BAHAMIAN commercial banks will “not become an invisible arm to force” the Government to implement GOWON BOWE long-awaited construction industry regulation, a senior banker is warning, with the sector due to meet contractors next week over the latter’s “exclusivity” proposal. Gowon Bowe, Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) chief executive, told Tribune Business that - while the Bahamian Contractors Association’s (BCA) proposal that only licensed, qualified tradesmen be permitted to work on bank-financed construction “makes sense” the industry cannot become involved in an initiative “to impose their own laws” and rules outside of the parliamentary process. Speaking after Leonard Sands, the BCA’s president, earlier this week revealed that the Association was seeking to negotiate an “exclusivity” deal where only its certified members would build projects financed by Clearing Banks Association (CBA) members, Mr Bowe said that while the banks support full implementation of construction industry regulation they will not be part of any “force tactics” to achieve this goal. Mr Sands had told this newspaper that the BCA and its members have run out of patience after a fruitless ten-year wait for two different administrations to give effect to the Construction Contractors Act by appointing a Board to oversee the law’s licensing and regulatory regime. Frustrated by the Government’s inaction, he added that the BCA has decided
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Dupuch & Turnquest signalled that much of the Grand Lucayan’s redevelopment is planned to occur over the next two years, as this will “parallel” the Grand Bahama International Airport’s
SAILING - See Page B13
Bank ‘builds in’ $4m regulatory cost jump BY NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
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