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8 firms line-up to buy Marriott Hotel
Kaieteur News – Eight firms have submitted their Expression of Interests (EOIs) in their bid to acquire the profitable Guyana Marriott Hotel.
The almost US$60M hotel started under Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo’s tenure as President using taxpayers’ dollars and other funds. The hotel was opened in 2015 and is owned by the Government through the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).
In an advertisement published on December 13, 2022, NICIL issued a pre-qualification notice, seeking EOIs from persons or companies, individually or as part of a joint venture / consortium, with an interest in purchasing its shares in Atlantic Hotel Inc (AHI), a special purpose company owned by NICIL for the acquisition of the Guyana Marriott Hotel.
The Guyana Marriott Hotel
Interim Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NICIL, Radha Krishna Sharma, on Wednesday evening confirmed to this publication that eight firms have submitted their EOIs. The deadline for submissions was on January 10, 2023. Kaieteur News had reported that after investing US millions into the Marriott Hotel and burdening taxpayers with a US-multimillion dollar loan that the hotel was unable to service, the Government then decided to sell the controversial hotel.
Back in 2017, AHI was unable to meet its due financial obligations to repay a loan from Republic Bank Limited of Trinidad. As such, AHI had requested the assistance of NICIL, the guarantor but the State agency was also unable to assist. In order to prevent the hotel from being acquired by the bank, the former Government in April 2017 made the decision to transfer AHI’s financial obligations to the Central Government. This decision has resulted in US$1.1 million ($226 million) of taxpayers dollars coming out every six months (since 2017) to service the US$27 million loan – for a 13-year period.
The Marriott Hotel has been deemed over the years as a monument of corruption and a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money. Importantly, financial statements for the hotel have not been made public for several years. Now seven-years after being operational and touting the investment as one of the most “transformational project”, the PPP-administration is now ready to sell the hotel and is moving forward with its plan to do so.
Shortly after it was made public that the Government had intentions of selling the Marriott Hotel, Former Finance Minister Winston Jordan, had called on the Government to disclose the hotel’s financial documents to ascertain whether the hotel was a plus or minus for Guyana.
In an interview with Kaieteur News, Jordan described the Government’s action to sell the hotel as “interesting” given the dilemma involving the project’s realisation. He indicated that a lot of money was needed to correct defects at the hotel and even more to service loans taken by the project’s handlers. It is unclear what position the hotel is in, and the former minister believes that information should be communicated to the public.
He recalled that during the David Granger Government, it was established that the administration was not interested in owning a hotel and wanted to sell the business. He said it was soon discovered however that the state of the finances would not allow them to sell the company and realised sums more than what was invested. Jordan agreed that with the finances unavailable, it is unclear whether anything was invested to make the hotel profitable and if not, then it would be selling at a loss. He said one thing that is known for sure is that the casino was never built and so profitability is still a question. “Unless you see the financials of Marriot, you don’t know what is being sold because even if you are selling your shares, your shares have to be based on the profitability or the worth of the stock. And the worth of the Institution is not what you put in it but what the market is prepared to pay or value your shares at,” Jordan opined.
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