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FRIDAY, MAY 23, 2025
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Deltec slams ‘gamesmanship’ on ‘unlawfully withheld’ $20m • Bank ‘categorically rejects’ claims on $410m • No misrepresentation or ‘undue delay’ in reply • Payment firm has converted its funds to crypto By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A BAHAMIAN bank is accusing a global payments provider of converting more than $20m “misappropriated” from itself and its clients into crypto currency and transferring the funds to its own account. Deltec Bank & Trust, in a statement to Tribune Business last night, also asserted that it “categorically rejects” allegations in a report commissioned by Ibanera and its principal, Michael Carbonara, which claimed the Bahamian institution “misrepresented” that all the $410.206m sent to them were its own monies. And the Lyford Cay-based operator dismissed the report’s suggestion that there were “undue delays” in its response to Ibanera’s requests for information, which the latter alleged left it exposed to Singapore financial institutions shutting down its bank accounts. Deltec, though, told this newspaper that it has supplied the south Florida federal court with evidence proving its average response time to Ibanera’s requests was just 1.5 days. And Lanecia Darville, its in-house attorney, in court-filed documents accused the payments provider of “gamesmanship” and seeking to place Deltec “under duress” with requests that were vague and featured tight deadlines. The spat is the latest exchange in the two sides’ escalating legal battle over Deltec’s accusations that Ibanera has effectively stolen - or “unlawfully withheld” - more than $20m belonging to the Bahamian bank and trust company and its clients. Ibanera has cited several justifications for retaining the monies, which have all been rejected with Deltec claiming it is constantly shifting to new reasons and excuses.
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Bank of America hired to ‘explore Sandals options’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
• First confirmation of hotel group’s potential sale SANDALS has hired Bank of America “to explore strate- • Private Trust Corporation gic options” amid a renewed sought as ‘co-trustee’ push to have the Supreme Court appoint a Bahamian bank as ‘co-judicial trustee’ • Concerns over $2.8m overseeing the resort chain. The US-headquartered Exuma resort payments financial institution’s role, which is said to be “at a very early stage”, was disclosed in May 5, 2025, legal filings with the Bahamian Supreme Court following pressure from Cheryl HammersmithStewart, third wife of Sandals’ founder, Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart. Attorneys for Mrs Hammersmith-Stewart, who is embroiled in an escalating legal battle with the Jamaican side of the late Mr Stewart’s family, slammed the contents of a Wall Street Journal
article suggesting that Sandals had hired bankers to prepare the resort chain for a potential sale as “remarkable and shocking” given that their client and other family members had allegedly been excluded from the process. Sandals avoided giving any explicit confirmation as to whether this was true, but this was ultimately forthcoming in an April 25, 2025, letter from Wilfred Ferguson, a Lennox Paton attorney, in response to the concerns voiced by Mrs Hammersmith-Stewart and other family members who are also beneficiaries of the late Mr Stewart’s estate. He forwarded a response from Sandals’ ‘advisory board’, which stated: “As the beneficiaries will be unsurprised to hear, a business such as Sandals regularly attracts attention from the
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SANDALS ROYAL BAHAMIAN
Clarify Grand Lucayan ‘ambiguity’ via Budget By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Government was yesterday urged to use the 2025-2026 Budget to clarify the “ambiguity” surrounding the Grand Lucayan deal and whether it has received the full $120m purchase price. Gowon Bowe, Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) chief executive, told Tribune Business that he hoped the Budget will “reflect
the reality” of the deal with Concord Wilshire and confirm whether the resort’s sale has actually closed or if it was just a ceremonial Heads of Agreement signing with more work needed from both parties. Well-placed sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told this newspaper that the sale of the Grand Lucayan’s physical resort assets and associated real estate was completed last Wednesday just one day before the Heads of
Agreement signing. However, this was never publicly confirmed by the Government, and it is thought that the full purchase price has yet to be received. Mr Bowe, meanwhile, argued that there needs to be greater clarity around the $120m sales price given that “no commercial enterprise is going to pay” that sum for a dilapidated, worn down resort
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GOWON BOWE
Gov’t ‘within limits’ despite $140m Central Bank jump By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Government was yesterday said to be within its legal borrowing limits despite increasing its reliance on short-term Central Bank advances by $140m, or 72 percent, during 2024. The Central Bank, in unveiling its 2024 annual report and financial accounts, revealed that outstanding advances due for repayment by the Government had risen once again from $192.046m at the start of 2024 to $332.811m at year-end. This brought the latter’s reliance on shortterm borrowing from the banking regulator back into line with the $335m that
was outstanding at year-end 2022. Despite several sources suggesting that the increased reliance on Central Bank borrowing indicates the Government continues to have challenges raising new debt “on the open market”, the Central Bank nevertheless asserted: “At the yearend date, advances to the Government were within the Bank’s temporary loan limits to the Government.” Those temporary lending limits have been tightened by recent changes to the Central Bank Act, which cut the Government’s borrowing limits “from 30 percent to 15.5
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PM dodges queries over Grand Lucayan’s $120m By FAY SIMMONS Tribune Business Reporter jsimmons@tribunemedia.net PRIME Minister Philip Davis KC yesterday failed to confirm whether the Government has received the full $120m purchase price from Concord Wilshire to acquire the Grand Lucayan resort. When asked if funds have been exchanged for the transaction, Mr Davis said there is an arrangement and a deal in place, so the public should “wait and see”. Stating that he did not see the need to “get into these details”, he added that for years nothing happened with Grand
Bahama-based resort and, now that progress is being made, it is important to “work together” instead of asking questions. “Look, I don’t need to… We have a project. We have an arrangement and a deal, wait and see. I don’t need to get into these details. Instead of us coming together to ensure that this project is successful, why just stand back or criticise? But for years, nothing has happened. Something is about to happen. Let us work together to see that this happens, instead of asking these questions,” said Mr Davis.
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