Executive chairman of Paradise Beach Limited, Avinash Persaud, has sought to clear the air on the Four Seasons project as six villa owners are expected to sign off on their property designs by monthend.
This will effectively open the door for major construction to resume.
During an interview with the WEEKEND NATION yesterday Persaud stressed that the villas were self-financing and the company had all the money it needed for the next 12 months.
He said the Government-backed US$60 million loan obtained last year from Ansa Merchant Bank was intended to accelerate the construction of the hotel.
This, he said, would give confidence to “potential villa owners to buy villas because they’ll know when their villa is finished the hotel is about to be finished”.
“If we don’t have a loan, it’s not that we can’t build the hotel. It’s that we can’t build the hotel without selling all the villas,” Persaud said.
He reiterated that the surplus from the sale of the villas would help to build the hotel.
He said a Government guarantee was necessary because “no one wanted to lend to the project”.
“Because we had so many creditors, nobody wanted to put money into a project where the day after it may go into receivership or bankruptcy because one of the creditors demanded payment,” he stated.
Persaud said the six villa owners had “paid more than a deposit” and he expected their residences would be the first to resume.
He added that six others had “effectively paid not much more than a deposit” and some of these had done very little design work.
“We expect all but one or two to end up progressing but at different stages,” he said, adding that the clients wanted to be very clear about their designs before they put in more money.
The executive chairman said the first loan cleaned up and stabilized the company.
“We had commitments by other lenders that once this was done they would bring a further US$40 million unguaranteed into the project,” he said, adding that Ansa Merchant Bank arranged for international lenders to be a part of a syndicate which would loan this sum.
“We have a term sheet for that lending, but we don’t need that money until another 12 months.
“If we were to sell one villa per year for the next four years we wouldn’t need any further financing. If we can’t do this we would need to raise additional funding, but because the project is on better footing we would be able to raise funding.
“But we are confident we will get villa sales,” he said.
