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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2022
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220 Legendary jobs for ‘hazardous’ site By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net AN $80M marina investment for southern New Providence is pledging to transform “a hazardous location” blighted by trash dumps and stolen boats via a project that will create 220 permanent jobs at full build-out. Legendary Marina Resort at Blue Water Cay, which is targeting a 20-acre site at the southern end of Fox Hill Road past Checkers Cafe and the Freedom Farm Baseball Park, is forecasting that it will attract 16,500 extra annual visitors to The Bahamas
• $80m marina aims to transform ‘blighted’ area • Trash dumps, stolen boats hurting Yamacraw • But ex-BREA president voices storm concern once the phased nine-anda-half construction process is completed. More details on the development, which is presently seeking both its planning and environmental approvals, are disclosed in the Environmental
Impact Assessment (EIA) produced by Bahamian consultancy, Bron Ltd, which states that the Florida-headquartered developer plans to overhaul an area purportedly being used for the
dumping of waste including dog faeces. The April 2022 economic impact assessment for Legendary Marina Resort, prepared by Tourism Economics (Oxford Economics), calculates the project will have a total $789m economic impact and boost annual Bahamian gross domestic product (GDP) by $483m over a 25-year period. This translates to an average total annual impact of $31.56m, and GDP effect of $19.32m, over that period. The assessment also predicted that the marina,
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Fears FTX freeze order was violated By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net FEARS were raised yesterday that the Supreme Court order freezing all assets of FTX’s Bahamian subsidiary was violated when some of the collapsed crypto currency exchange’s clients withdrew their monies late last week. Well-placed Tribune Business sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly, suggested those involved could be prosecuted for contempt of court and be forced to repay the funds removed since the transactions represent a so-called “fraudulent preference” where they gain undue advantages over
other FTX clients whose assets remain frozen. This newspaper confirmed that some clients of FTX Digital Markets, the entity licensed and registered by the Securities Commission of The Bahamas, were able to retrieve their assets - which the crypto exchange was holding for them on trust or in escrow, in a fiduciary capacity - starting around the time that the Supreme Court issued its Order last Thursday shutting down all local operations. FTX, in a Twitter tweet sent out at 2.08pm on Thursday, November 10, barely hours before the Securities Commission’s announcement of the asset freeze and provisional liquidator’s appointment, wrote: “Per our Bahamian HQ’s (FTX Digital Markets) regulation and
Collapse ‘bewilders’ FTX Bahamas staff By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net FTX’s 40 Bahamian staff have been left “bewildered and beleaguered” by the speed of the crypto exchange’s collapse, a senior executive says, amid hopes its $74m real estate outlay will prove a key recovery source for local creditors. Valdez Russell, FTX Digital Markets’ vice-president of communications, told Tribune Business that “many” of the expatriate workers brought in by the Bahamian subsidiary have already left the country after the company last week imploded in one of the most rapid and spectacular
corporate collapses in world history. Confirming that FTX’s co-founder and former chief executive, Sam BankmanFried, remains holed up in The Bahamas will regulators, police and provisional liquidators comb through the wreckage of an empire valued at $32bn just weeks ago, he added that local staff “remain engaged” at present albeit facing a very uncertain immediate future. “I believe it’s fair to suggest that staff are bewildered and beleaguered by what has happened, while at the same time being appreciative of the opportunity afforded to transform the digital assets space right
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regulators, we have begun to facilitate withdrawals of Bahamian funds. As such, you may have seen some withdrawals processed by FTX recently
as we complied with the regulators. “The amounts withdrawn comprise a small
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PRIME Minister Philip Davis KC at the groundbreaking for FTX’s proposed Bahamas headquarters earlier this year. Seen immediately to the right is FTX co-founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, and right next to him is Christina Rolle, the Securities Commission’s executive director. Allyson Maynard-Gibson KC, former attorney general and FTX attorney, is third from left, and contractor Jimmy Mosko is second right.
Bahamas told: Don’t pause digital assets plan on FTX failure By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net HALTING its digital assets growth strategy due to FTX’s collapse would be “the worst thing The Bahamas could do”, an industry entrepreneur says, even though the failed crypto exchange now faces a local criminal investigation. Kevin Hobbs, chief executive and founder of Aventus Ventures, and a blockchain investor for ten years, told
• Would lose ‘global respect’ if did so Tribune Business that pausing the country’s ambitions to become a regional digital assets hub immediately following FTX’s debacle could be interpreted as “an admission of guilt” when
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