Sale of Grand Bahama Port Authority

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Is the Grand Bahama Port Authority still for sale?

Some years about, within the last five years, there has been a few rumours about persons who were interested in purchasing the "Port"and one that stuck out in my mind was the British Parliamentarian Lord Michael Ashcroft.

This flirting idea I was made to believe was rejected. True or not, we are left to speculate.

Earlier this year I was able to get my hands on another investor who wanted to purchase shares in the Grand Bahama Port Authority, I guess with the hopes of being the major shareholders promising the world.

Their report was left with members of the Grand Bahama Port Authority and is called "the Flemming Strategy" which took a look at the island as it is (was in 2009) and gave their ideas which would bring in lots of money and jobs to the island, beginning with a $26 billion injection right away.

The report was compiled by Global Fulfillment Services in 2008. But I wonder, what were the circumstances under which these ideas they espoused and their ability to fulfill them made them unsuitable to purchase the shares?

It appears they had in mind to make Grand Bahama the next economically thriving Dubai or Singapore.

In their executive summary they noted the decline in the economy of Grand Bahama and the country over the past 20 years but said, "billions of dollars in investment, careful attention to detail, empathy with people involved and an unrelenting determination to prevail" was the answer.

They got me so far... I do agree with this analysis on a whole.

The report said their goal was "to create the most significant off shore commercial centre in the Western Hemisphere" with the Principles of "Principles: transparency, good governance, triple bottom line sustainability, profitability".

They had estimated contribution of +/- 28 billion between 2008-2020 and contribution to the Bahamas GDP of  +/- 5.5 billion in 2020 and a labour force of 132,000.

I think for the jobs alone the Bahamian populace may ask, what happened?

But of course what did they plan to do was a critical question to which the report said they had intentions of bringing businesses; to create a commercial and industrial powerhouse to reverse the slow economic decline, noting that it would take an innovative and determined approach towards reconstruction to reverse the damage that has been done to Freeport over the past 20 years.
The report said that it would also take billions of dollars in investment capital but it can and should be achieved.

Things that make you go, hmmm.

It went on to say that while they would be buying out the Port, they will partner with Hutchison and the Government but that they would step back to allow Hutchison to dictate the future of Freeport.

The group what compiled the report is no longer in Grand Bahama and a search of the company brought some dubious articles. Are they related or was the group unfortunate?





Read the full report here: The Flemming Strategy

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