Voluntary salary cuts by 1 000 workers to stop a collapse of the Almond Resort are worthy of praise but not enough to keep the hotel group afloat.
Gervase Warner, president and chief executive officer of Neal & Massy, the Trinidadian conglomerate that owns Almond, told the MIDWEEK?NATION yesterday that the financial troubles facing the group of three hotels were just too mammoth for the employees to solve.
“I certainly applaud the effort of employees to be part of the solution and to save their jobs.
“The share proposal to take a cut in salaries to finance the investment is very courageous and generous but honestly, I would be remiss to ask employees to take a pay cut to solve this problem.”
Warner said: “It would not be sufficient for the magnitude of investment required. We need cash now to invest and bring it back.”
He warned: “It would be painful for employees [to take a pay cut] in this tough economy. I applaud their commitment but it would not give us the cash we need now. There is just too much debt by the company for this type of solution.”
Warner revealed that Almond was buckling under more than $100 million in accumulated debt with $80 million in bad debt and $25 million in related party debt.
Read the full story in today’s MIDWEEK NATION.
