He just paid $114 million to become the new owner of BTL - and he's going to spend $100 million more to buy out the whole company.
But apart from being a very wealthy man, who really is Jeffrey Prosser and what are his plans for phone users in Belize? We tried to get answers to those questions and a whole lot more when we spoke to him today.
Jules Vasquez, 7NEWS Director
"What took so long?"
Jeffrey Prosser, New BTL Owner
"Well actually I think the transaction moved quickly when you look at the complexity of purchasing a phone company and somewhat of a unique situation because we were really purchasing from the government who was purchasing from Carlisle who owned the company."
Jules Vasquez,
"Is there now an intent to buy social security's shares and those owned locally by the small shareholder's and how much are you willing to pay for them?"
Jeffrey Prosser,
"There's absolutely an intent. We will purchase the social security shares and we will purchase as many of the other minority shareholders as we can, I mean we would like to buy it all."
Jules Vasquez,
"For the 491 employees of BTL. What should they expect on April 1st, they are very jumpy as you can understand."
Jeffrey Prosser,
"Well first of all, the employees of BTL have no reason to be jumpy. I mean we are not at all purchasing BTL to bring in management or to terminate employees-that's not the way we operate. We've operated in a lot of islands in the Caribbean and we understand that jobs are not easy and you don't go into a community and start laying people off from relatively good paying jobs because there's nowhere for them to go."
"Ultimately the one thing I can assure Belize is that the general manager or the president will be a Belizean. We are not bringing in someone from ICC to run BTL."
Jules Vasquez,
"Will it continue to pay that 19% gross tax on earnings?"
Jeffrey Prosser,
"Well there are certain areas of this that clearly until the transaction closes I don't really want to get into but second of all there are also areas that are still under discussions with government, not everything is 100% resolved. We clearly think 19% is a fairly excessive tax and I'll leave it at that."
Jules Vasquez,
"If BTL pays a 19% tax on gross then Speednet and Intelco should also pay a 19% tax on gross earnings if there is a level playing field."
Jeffrey Prosser,
""Well you know theoretically yes but on the other side I understand that but whether it's here whether or it's the Virgin Islands or wherever - there's always reasons why, and most of the time legitimate reasons why, there are tax breaks given to certain companies and so I'm not aware of the tax situation of Intelco or any other licensee and in all honesty that's not my concern."
Jules Vasquez,
"But you're competing against these people."
Jeffrey Prosser,
"But I don't...see I'm not worried about the competition. I think that if we provide the service that we should to the customer at a price they're happy with, we will keep customers and we will grow."
Jules Vasquez,
"What do you know of the agreements that BTL has signed with Speednet?"
Jeffrey Prosser,
(Sighs) "I can't say that I personally know but of course our lawyers and so far the have been through all of the agreements and so forth and I can't go through each one because I quite honestly don't know about each one but I know this that our lawyers are comfortable with the agreements that are there and they are what they are."
Jules Vasquez,
"Do you think the arrangement with Speednet was made to undermine this transaction?"
Jeffrey Prosser,
"There's been a lot of strange things that I've seen go on and I have no idea what ultimately happened, but again for us we made our decision months ago that we were going forward unless something really huge that we weren't aware of came up. So if in fact the intent was to do these strange things to rattle us, we don't rattle easily."
Jules Vasquez,
"The entire conversation began with lower rates, this entire Carlisle versus GOB versus Intelco, this entire circus began with simple idea that if you have competition you'll have lower rates. I know you're not running the company. Do you think Belize deserves lower rates do you think rates are high what do you think of are high?"
Jeffrey Prosser,
"Well as you can imagine as you said I'm not sitting in the chair so it's tough for me to say I do believe this: clearly international rates have to come down but I don't believe competition gives long term results in lower rates--it certainly hasn't in the united states or anywhere else in the world. Competition has ultimately resulted in poorer service and in the end higher cost to the consumer."
Jules Vasquez,
"What do you see for interconnection?"
Jeffrey Prosser,
"It will be resolved right now we're in various discussions with Intelco to come up with an agreement on what interconnection rate will be. We think that's normally how it's handled rather than trying to go through these protracted regulatory proceedings its much easier if the parties themselves can come to an agreement which I believe we will we have been and still are in discussions with Intelco and I believe that's the first thing on our desk to resolve as soon as we take over on April 1st. We will resolve it. It's that simple."
"I don't believe that competition has near the impact as it's being perceived here in Belize I'm not concerned giving Intelco interconnection at all and we will give it to them and I don't think ¡t will make a difference for Intelco in the long term cause I think if you're dependent upon that to build your business plan in my humble view it's never worked in the united states and I don't think it would work here either."
Jules Vasquez,
"The opposition released a number of statements, first they claimed that as a part of the closing you requested that your company be given a four year monopoly on land lines and also that there be a floor on international rates so that there not be a race to the bottom which would force BTL a much larger company out of that competition. Can you comment on these allegations?"
Jeffrey Prosser,
"Well as you can well imagine until the transaction closes I don't want to get into specifics of the agreements but I can say this - there's no - as far as I am aware there is no four year anything and as far as the minimum on long distance international rates you have to remember that there's an automatic floor because there's n international counting rate that has to be paid. Like a call going to the United States, there's a charge that the carriers in the United States charge so there's an automatic floor. So it's just simply not true that BTL is going to dictate the floor. The floor is dictated."
Jules Vasquez,
"But there are people who use the Internet."
Jeffrey Prosser,
"Basically what they're doing is stealing long distance traffic and my view is that if you're going to steal the service, its cheap and you pay nothing for it."
Jules Vasquez,
"You keep on referring to the fact that 'when the deal is closed,' I thought the deal was closed yesterday."
Jeffrey Prosser,
"No that's the signing, it closes on Wednesday."
Jules Vasquez,
"So from your perspective, what are the outstanding issues?"
Jeffrey Prosser,
"The open issues that are out there will certainly not be resolved in a few days. I mean there are more issues with the public utilities commission and those kind of issues so it will drag on for a while."
Jules Vasquez,
"So were any concessions made for your company?"
Jeffrey Prosser,
"Well I think that until the transaction is closed. I don't want to get into any the sections of the agreement."
Jules Vasquez,
"There is the outstanding matter of the people versus of BTL. There are consumers, at least 12,000, who have written into the PUC demanding a refund and all said it could add up to over 60 million dollars. Do you think that you'll have to pay this? Is it a contingency, a possibility that your negotiators have looked at?"
Jeffrey Prosser,
"Yes, we've looked at it."
Jules Vasquez,
"And your impression is?"
Jeffrey Prosser,
"Well again until April 1st, some of these issues I don't want to get into. Clearly if it was a big concern and affecting us, we wouldn't be going through this process."
Jules Vasquez,
"However the point of it is that regardless of how this is viewed in the wider scheme of the repayabaility of this investment, it is a sticking point when the court has ruled that the rates were illegal and for three years."
Jeffrey Prosser,
"It certainly has the potential to be a big issue." (Smiles)
And while Prosser proceeds smilingly, the UDP is furiously frowning on the sale. A release today calls for immediate disclosure of the agreement because the opposition claims it contains straight-up giveaways including a minimum rate of return. Our government sources confirm this, explaining that the agreement guarantees ICC a 15% rate of return on its BTL investment.
If it sounds familiar, well it is - that same feature was legislated into the privatization of BWSL and it has become quite a thorn in the side of the Public Utilities Commission which must build its rate review recommendations around this central consideration.
And while the guarantee hamstrings the PUC on the one side, on the other, it could forseeably place government and taxpayers in the position of having to honor the guarantee to a fully private company with funds from the public purse - if that 15% return cannot be realized through earnings.
In its release, the UDP also denounces the minimum charge that will be fixed on international calls. In Prosser's view it's not a restriction, but what he envisions is a single international gateway through which all international long distance calls from all phone companies would have to be routed. This would mark the end of Intelco's 25 cents a minute to the states service, which uses the Internet and BTL's 10-10-199 service, which also uses the Internet.