A decision on the potential sale of the State-owned Guyana Marriott Hotel will be made after the two new bids that were submitted earlier this week are assessed by an evaluation team.
This was revealed by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday at his weekly press briefing.
Last month, the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) received six bids ranging from US$25 million to US$65 million to purchase the Marriott Hotel, located in Kingston, Georgetown.
However, Government felt that those were “too low”, and decided not to pursue any of them. NICIL then wrote the six companies, informing them that a base price of US$85 million was set, and as such, recommended that they resubmit bids reflecting this new figure.
Only two of the six companies responded by the May 16, 2023 deadline. New offers were received from X, LLC at US$90 million and Integrated Group Guyana Inc at US$86.1 million.
According to the Vice President, the next step is to have these two new bids assessed before a decision is taken on the sale of the hotel.
“I don’t know what [that decision will be, at this point]. When they go into the details of the bids, [I don’t know] what the evaluation team will find, but they have an obligation to assess the bids and then make a recommendation to the Government,” Jagdeo pointed out.
He highlighted that if the Government had gone ahead with any of the first set of offers submitted for the Marriott Hotel, then it would have lost out on as much as US$35 million in revenues from the sale of the property. The Vice President has maintained, “We’re not gonna sell this hotel for less than US$85 million.”
During the initial bidding round, the highest bid of US$65 million was received from X, LLC, an American investment group founded by Ramy El-Batrawi. The company’s website says its primary focus is to invest in, and enhance, target industries.
Among the other bidders were Pegasus Hotel Guyana, which bid at US$55.5 million; Georgetown Investments and Management Services Inc, which bid at US$50M; Muneshwers Ltd, which bid at US$25 million; Integrated Group Guyana Inc, which bid at US$55 million; and NCB Capital Markets Limited, which bid at US$33 million.
The Guyana Marriott Hotel, which opened in 2015, was constructed to the tune of US$58 million. A feasibility study conducted by a Miami-based firm, HVS Consulting, back in 2010 had outlined that the Marriott Hotel is likely to be sold ten years after its operationalisation at some US$76.1 million.
