As government moves forward to sell its shares in the Guyana Marriott Hotel in Kingston, six companies have submitted bids ranging from US$25M to US$65M to purchase the facility.
The companies are Pegasus Hotel Guyana which submitted a bid at US$55.5M, Georgetown Investments and Management Services Inc. which bid at US$50M, X,LLC. which bid at US$65M, Muneshwers Ltd. at US$25M, Integrated Group Guyana Inc. at US$55M, and NCB Capital Markets Limited at US$33M.
It was noted that eight expressions of interest were initially received and as such, the applicants were written to and invited to submit a bid by paying a fee to purchase an information package which consisted of unaudited financial statements, agreements, architectural plans, and other pertinent information on the facility.
Six bids were then received before the closing date of April 17. These bids were received and kept under a controlled and secured environment R.K. Sharma, Chief Executive Officer of NICIL and Ms. Arianne McLean, Company Secretary & In-House Attorney of NICIL.
All six bidders were contacted and invited to attend a Bid Opening Meeting in NICIL’s Boardroom at NICIL’s Head Office on Monday.
Representatives of two bidders were physically present, while a representative of one attended virtually via Zoom Video Conference.
The six bids were opened and read aloud in the presence of all present. The bidders and their respective bids were recoded, signed and acknowledged by the bidders who were present, as well as the representatives of NICIL.
In a notice back in December, NICIL had announced its intention to sell the State’s shares in Atlantic Hotels Incorporated (AHI), the State-owned holding company for the Marriott Hotel.
AHI is the NICIL special purpose company that owns Marriott, a 197-room hotel that opened in 2015, whose financing structure had depended on a casino and entertainment centre to make enough money to repay up to US$30 million in debts to the banks and other creditors. But that addition to the hotel was scrapped.
Interested bidders were required to have financial capability which NICIL had set as a minimum net worth of approximately US$250 million, audited financial statements for the last three financial years and letters of financial capability from a recognised financial institution.
Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has positioned that now is the best time to sell the Marriott Hotel. “Now, it would be best to sell the Marriott off. You could probably maximise the price that you will get when it’s profitable and before the seven new hotels that are privately [being] built, that are international brands, come on the market,” he had stated.
The construction of the Marriott Hotel, which started in 2011, had sparked widespread controversy. At the time, Jagdeo was the president and his administration had faced heavy criticism over the use of taxpayers’ monies to financing the hotel.
But Jagdeo has always defended the decision.
“The Government didn’t need to own a hotel at that time but the era was that we were not getting new hotels built and we had to trigger the investment,” he has emphasized.
According to the Vice President, now that the hotel is operation at a profit and provides some 500 jobs to Guyanese, directly and indirectly. He insists that selling the Kingston, Georgetown hotel now would bring in “maximum value” to the state that could go towards triggering other investments in the country.
“There is no particular supreme benefit to government owning [the hotel]. Whether to maximise the money and invest it into something else …it’s a pure business decision [to sell now]…It is the period. You maximise the period in which you sell. This money, some of it will go to clear off the remaining loan and some will come to the treasury to be used back for whatever purpose is determined. And so, this is probably the best time when you can maximise the value before you get competition from seven other hotels coming into the market within a year or two,” he noted.
The Guyana Marriott Hotel was completed in 2015, the same year ExxonMobil first found oil in Guyana’s waters. The hotel has since gone on to play an important part in Guyana’s developing oil and gas sector, as it being used to accommodate local and overseas offshore workers. It is also a prime venue to host numerous private and state-sponsored events.
