Bahamas

The Bahamas resort Baha Mar has taken more than 10 years to open, but on Friday, the $4.2 billion, 1,000-acre development on a half-mile of beachfront in Nassau is expected to finally debut — at least, in part, the International New York Times reported. Baha Mar comprises three hotel brands — Grand Hyatt, SLS Hotels and Rosewood Hotels & Resorts — for a total of 2,300 rooms. Grand Hyatt, with 1,800 rooms, is the largest and will be previewing on opening day; with nightly rates in the mid-$300 range, it’s also the most affordable.

The uncertain future of Baha Mar, a $3.5 billion mega-resort nearing completion on Nassau’s white-sand Cable Beach, points to the challenges China faces as it finances and builds large-scale construction projects overseas amid language and cultural barriers, lack of regulation and allegations of graft. “The more problems there are and, in a way, the more media attention these problems attract, they erode positive attitudes towards Chinese presence in the region,” said Ariel C.

The quiet is almost spooky here on the outskirts of Nassau, where the waterscape frills of nearby Paradise Island give way to the vast ghost-resort that is Baha Mar, Bloomberg News reported. Just how the place ended up like this -- in a bankruptcy so colossal that it’s jeopardizing the Bahamas’s credit rating -- is the biggest business story to hit this Caribbean nation for as long as anyone here can remember. It stretches far beyond the white beaches and across time zones, to none other than the State Council of China.

A meeting of creditors of Sir Anthony O’Reilly to see if a formal deal can be reached on the sale of his assets and the division of the proceeds is likely to follow Friday’s decision of the court in the Bahamas to declare him bankrupt. The judge in the case specifically mentioned that parties in the case could subsequently apply to the court to ratify such an agreement, the Irish Times reported.

Sir Anthony O’Reilly has been declared bankupt in a court hearing in the Bahamas and is now to be allowed file for an insolvency arrangement, the Supreme Court in the Bahamas has ruled. This followed a lengthy hearing on Friday when AIB, one of Sir Anthony’s creditors, had held that there were procedural errors in the existing filing and also that the court had no jurisdiction in the matter, the Irish Times reported. The ruling was delivered by Justice Milton Evans on Friday evening, following a day of legal submissions.

Baha Mar Ltd. has filed a plan outlining the way the $3.5 billion stalled resort project in the Bahamas hopes to restructure in chapter 11 ahead of a hearing Friday to dismiss its U.S. bankruptcy case, The Wall Street Journal reported. The structure of the proposed plan swaps the ownership of Baha Mar for new financing, meaning whoever finances the project will end up owning the Bahamian resort, a key driver of the island nation’s economy. The plan also issues replacement debt to the resort’s current lender and unsecured creditors.

The opening of the $3.5 billion Baha Mar mega-resort in the Bahamas is expected to be delayed beyond the start of the Christmas season, with the developer deep in an escalating legal battle with the Chinese companies that are providing most of the finance and construction work, Reuters reported. Even if construction on the unfinished resort resumed this month, there is little chance the project could be completed by mid-December, the start of the high season for Bahamas resorts, according to local contractors who have worked on the project.

The cost of completing the stalled $3.5 billion Baha Mar mega-resort in the Bahamas has risen to $400 million, according to a letter from the project's developer. Baha Mar Ltd, run by Sarkis Izmirlian, has offered to invest $200 million in the project alongside the resort's main lender, China's Export-Import Bank, according to a letter viewed by Reuters.

The developer of the $3.5 billion Baha Mar mega-resort is willing to commit up to $200 million to jumpstart the stalled Bahamas project, lawyers told a U.S. bankruptcy judge on Thursday. Baha Mar, which will feature a Las Vegas-style casino and more than 2,000 hotel rooms, is nearly complete, but construction stopped several months ago because of a dispute between the developer and the main contractor, Chinese State Construction Engineering Corp Ltd's China Construction America.

A judge in the Bahamas has declined to recognize the U.S. bankruptcy filing by Baha Mar Ltd, the developer of a $3.5 billion mega resort, a source familiar with the ruling said on Wednesday. Recognition of the Chapter 11 U.S. bankruptcy filing would have prevented creditors from taking action against Baha Mar Ltd in the Bahamas. The decision by Supreme Court Justice Ian Winder was the latest snag in the nearly completed project, which is considered vital for the Caribbean country's fragile economy. Baha Mar said in a statement it was disappointed by the ruling.