The following is a press statement from the Anguilla National Tourism Investment Limited.

Press reports and rumours have been circulating in Anguilla since November 15th, suggesting that Cap Juluca has been sold to the Gencom Group, a hotel and vacation residential real estate development company based in Florida, USA. This has created much speculation and heightened the uncertainty and confusion at this time surrounding the future of the Resort.

Anguilla National Tourism Investment Limited (ANTIL) wishes to comment and state to the Anguillian public, particularly the management and staff of the Resort, as well as its loyal clientele, key service providers, supporters and well wishers, that it is not possible for Cap Juluca to have been sold to the Gencom Group. This is so because a specific process must first be completed in order for a sale to actually take place. The process at best has been started but has a far way to go to be completed. At this stage there is no telling what the outcome would be.

ANTIL and Auberge-Firesky, Anguillian and foreign joint venture partners respectively, are seeking the opportunity to acquire Cap Juluca with significant Anguillian ownership participation. As a result we are familiar with the Government’s policies and procedures governing foreign investment and joint foreign and local investment in which the foreign partner is the majority owner. Based on this knowledge we are confident that Cap Juluca is not and cannot be sold at this time to the Gencom Group for the very simple reason that the necessary sale procedure has not been completed. Based on the policies, laws and regulations of the Government, the process of selling Cap Juluca to a foreign buyer, in particular, must involve several critical steps irrespective of whether Gencom or any other foreign investment group is the purchaser or in the case of a joint venture such as ANTIL-Auberge-Firesky, the majority owner in the joint venture is foreign.

As a first step, a purchase and sale agreement would have to be signed between the owner of Cap Juluca, Mr. Dion Friedland, through Leeward Isles Resorts Limited, the company in which his ownership of Cap Juluca is vested, and the prospective purchaser of the hotel. Gencom and Mr. Friedland are in a position to be transparent about this and should let the public know whether or not they have signed an agreement and if so the nature of such an agreement. The agreement would have to spell out the terms, conditions and preconditions to be met and completed by the owner and the prospective purchaser over a defined period of time before the closing of the sale and purchase can take place, that is before the final transaction resulting in the terms of payment being met by the buyer and the title to the property (the lease) being transferred from the owner to the buyer. This means that even if a purchase and sale agreement has been signed by Mr. Friedland and Mr. Alibhai, the principal of Gencom, the sale has not yet taken place and cannot take place until the necessary terms, conditions and preconditions have been met.

Two essential preconditions that Gencom would have to meet in order to proceed to complete the purchase Cap Juluca from Mr. Friedland involve the Government of Anguilla and specifically decisions of the Executive Council. The first is that the Government through the Executive Council would have to give investment approval to Gencom to take over and further develop Cap Juluca. Their proposals for Cap Juluca would have to be carefully scrutinized by the Government to ensure that they are in keeping with and meet the Government’s stated requirements and vision for the future of Cap Juluca. The grant of investment approval would also require Government to assess Gencom and its strategic partners carefully and extensively in keeping with its policies and procedures on investment, to reasonably assure itself that they are an excellent choice, given that there are and have been other investor groups, keen to grasp the opportunity to purchase and develop Cap Juluca.

The fact that other investor groups also wish to purchase Cap Juluca puts the Government in a position to set out its vision and to invite the interested investors wishing to obtain the Government’s approval to enable then to purchase the property, to submit proposals for competitive selection in relation its vision for the property.

The second major precondition involving a decision of the Anguilla Government is that Gencom would have to obtain the approval for the issue to them of an Alien Landholding License to hold the Cap Juluca lease.

The sale can only go through if and when the Anguilla Government approves Gencom as the investor to purchase Cap Juluca and approves the issue of an Alien Landholding License to them.

ANTIL and Auberge-Firesky are reliably informed that neither of these two critical approvals have as yet been obtained by Gencom. Mr. Friedland, Gencom and the Government are in a position to let the public know as well as Cap Juluca’s management and staff, its clientele and key service providers what is the current position regarding the sale of the property to Gencom. Is Cap Juluca sold or not?

ANTIL and Auberge-Firesky state confidently that Cap Juluca is not sold.

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