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Robert Mayers |
Several local conglomerates, including ANSA McAL, are making bids to purchase the assets of the company's operations in Trinidad and the wider Caribbean, it was learned yesterday.
Senior officials at ANSA declined comment but the Express learned that the company had indicated its interest in acquiring the outlets located in 11 Caribbean countries.
Anselm Frost, manager of the group's foreign operations, was not available for comment yesterday.
The proposed sale of the Caribbean business, which was described as "very profitable", has caused some concern in the capital market.
At an RBTT Merchant Bank forum on Caribbean capital markets held last week in Miami, the sale of Courts to the "Mr Bigs" of the Caribbean was criticised by former minister of finance Wendell Mottley.
"The Mr Bigs within their respective countries, through their connections, they first see the biggest and best deals and successfully manage their money in such buy-outs," he said.
Mottley said a good recent example of takeover by the "Mr Bigs" is the bid of several hundred million US dollars "taking place right now for the Caribbean operations of the Courts Stores".
Mottley said the outcome of the sale might be good for the winning bidder, but "it would be a strain to argue that Caribbean development is advanced by such transactions".
Mottley said already an inordinate amount of private capital was being used for multi-million dollar shopping plazas, apartment complexes , movie palaces and restaurants, none of which were clusters or sustainable globally competitive enterprises.
Robert Mayers of Caribbean Money Market Brokers who sees the sale of Courts as nothing short of the migration of foreign exchange from Trinidad asked: "Who is going to stem the haemorrhage of foreign exchange?"
Mayers said the flight of such huge capital is a bad thing for the Caribbean. "It is a bad thing from the capital outflow perspective that we don't need," he said.
Mayers said it was time that a culture was developed to cherish the country's foreign exchange and not use it for consumption.
Last year Thomas Pantin, managing director of Courts in Trinidad had said that "the operations would continue with business as usual".
His statement had come in light of problems with Courts plc, the group's parent company in the United Kingdom . He had said that the company had appointed administrators to oversee its operations after it got into a 280 million pound debt.
At present there are 95 Courts outlets in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados, Belize, Antigua, St Lucia, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, St Kitts, and St Vincent.
These Caribbean outlets contributed some 181 million pounds to the group sales of 637 million pounds last year.
Courts was founded in 1945 by the Cohen family in England. |
