Ed Ahmad gears to make $600M on $80M GuySuCo land deal

Apr 13, 2014 News

…changes from wood processing plant to housing scheme

Almost five years after acquiring a huge piece of prime, seaside property to develop a value-added wood processing operation, a New York-based Guyanese businessman has now instead converted the area into house lots.

Developer, Ed Ahmad

However, there has been no official announcement by the administration over the new arrangements and who would have given the permission.
The conditions of sale were that the company would have set up a factory to creat jobs for persons in the neighbourhood.
This condition was responsible for the low price they paid for the land. There has been no factory to date. Instead there is a multi-million-dollar housing development project.
The project, Leonora Mall and Hollywood Garden, is being managed by Leonora Projects which is owned by Shareef and Ed Ahmad. The latter is said to be a close associate of former President Bharrat Jagdeo.
The name of this project is advertised on a signboard established at the site of what was to be the location of the wood processing plant.
The conversion of the almost 17-acre plot to the Leonora Mall and Hollywood Garden has been raising eyebrows as again, it is the controversial National Industrial and Commercial Investments Ltd (NICIL) that is involved.
Winston Brassington heads NICIL although he offered his resignation almost a year ago. He was the one that piloted this deal with Ahmad.
The land, located around a scenic turn, was once the managers’ compound. It was under the control of the state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and home to a pool and several of GuySuCo’s senior staffers.
Around 2009, NICIL reportedly sold it to Ahmad for $80M or about $4.7M per acre.
According to the company’s website, Leonora Projects is planning to construct 87 homes on the site.
Company officials said, yesterday, that a house lot is now being sold for at least $7M. This means that the $80 million plot of land is now worth more than $600M.
The company is also building homes for at least $30M each.
In announcing the sale, NICIL and its sister agency, Privatisation Unit, had said that the use of the land was restricted to value-added wood processing operations.
The sale of the land was made to one of Ahmad’s companies, South American Woods Incorporated, which is also owned by another individual whose name is given as Shareef Ahmad.
According to the website leonoraprojects.com, the initiative is one of the most grand development projects in Guyana. “It is being done with ‘you in mind’. Leonora Projects is a vision of Ed Ahmad.”
It is the plan to include a full gas and service station, facilities to house two banks and a huge shopping mall.
“Leonora Projects illustrates the envisioning of an entire community, not just homes,” the website says.
The Leonora projects are being run from Ahmad’s building materials depot at Ruimveldt, Georgetown.
NICIL itself has been embroiled in a number of questionable transactions including its privatization of the Sanata

Head of NICIL
Winston Brassington0

Complex in Ruimveldt which was sold cheaply to Queens Atlantic, headed by former President Bharrat Jagdeo’s best friend, Dr. Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ Ramroop.
NICIL’s point man, Winston Brassington, is at the centre of a number of questionable deals including the Marriott Hotel and financial arrangements of the Berbice River Bridge.
Ahmad was charged by the US Federal authorities for his involvement in a massive real estate fraud scheme.
In October 2012, during a plea deal in a New York court, he was found guilty of knowingly and intentionally conspiring to defraud several lending institutions over a period of 15 years.