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MONDAY, JULY 15, 2019
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Grand Lucayan LOI in 30-day extension By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
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HE government has extended the Letter of Intent (LOI) for the Grand Lucayan’s purchase by 30 days as ITM and Royal Caribbean seek to “tie down” their airlift and sealift plans. Well-placed Tribune Business sources confirmed last week that the LOI, signed by the the two parties at end-February 2019, has been extended to the end of July to give the joint
• ITM/Royal Caribbean given until end-July • JV still ‘tying down’ air and sealift issues • Draft Heads of Agreement being readied venture extra time to investigate all aspects of their hotel acquisition. This newspaper was told, though, that the Minnis administration is aiming to “claw back” the extra month’s due diligence once both sides move into negotiating the hotel purchase and the Heads of Agreement. A draft Heads of
Contract work fear for middle classes
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
A TRADE union leader has voiced fears that the increasing use of contract workers by Bahamian employers threatens to further “erode” an alreadyshrinking middle class. Bernard Evans, the National Congress of Trade Unions (NCTU) president, told Tribune Business that worker rights and protections are in danger of being undermined by the growing trend of companies seeking to cut costs by slashing their full-time workforce and
BERNARD EVANS outsourcing key functions. He pointed to the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC), whose line staff union he used to head, as one such example given how its technicians had been
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Dive operators ‘thrown under bus’ on sharks By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE principal of Stuart Cove’s Dive Bahamas yesterday said the industry had been “thrown under the bus” by the government’s response to recent sharkrelated incidents. Stuart Cove, revealing that business levels had returned to normal “within a week” of the tragic fatality near Rose Island, told Tribune Business that he and the Bahamas Dive Association’s (BDA) 34 other members
already had standards and procedures in place to respond to shark bites and attacks. Suggesting that the meeting he and other BDA members were summoned to be the Tourism Development Corporation was totally unnecessary, Mr Cove said his company had overseen “a million encounters” between sharks and visitors over the last 40 years without any problems occurring. Arguing that himself and his company were being
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Agreement is being readied for presentation to ITM/ Royal Caribbean at July’s end when the LOI extension expires, with the government and Grand Lucayan Board taking the position that the extra due diligence granted should shorten the deal’s closing time. The complexity of the deal, and involvement of
multiple parties, is thought to have complicated talks to-date. Tribune Business was told that ITM, in particular, was becoming increasingly uneasy over what it perceived as difficulties in tying down the Hutchison Whampoa-controlled Freeport Harbour
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‘Paradigm shift’ for technology hub, logistics By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
A DRONE operator yesterday said its multi-million dollar investment will produce both “a paradigm shift in Bahamian logistics” and a much-needed boost for the Grand Bahama technology hub. Arthur Frisch, co-founder of Hogfish Ventures, told Tribune Business that the company’s plans could translate into “hundreds of jobs” through a combination of its on-demand drone delivery services and proposed Freeport-based research
and development (R&D) facility. Revealing that the latter has already received the go-ahead from the Bahamas Civil Aviation Authority, Mr Frisch said he and Hogfish’s Bahamian cofounder, Robert Sweeting, were now working to finalise the R&D facility’s location in anticipation of welcoming their “first tech tourist” before year-end 2019. Describing it as “a money maker” both for themselves and Freeport’s economy, he explained that the R&D facility was intended to act
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