Tonight BTL is owned by Innovative Communication Company and government has received US $89 million in the transaction.
US $57 million of that is for Carlisle's shares and the other US $32 million is for social security's 26% and other government holdings.
Carlisle's Michael Ashcroft, ICC's Jeffrey Prosser, Finance Minister Ralph Fonseca and Prime Minister Said Musa signed off on the agreement at a closed door meeting about 45 minutes ago at the central bank conference room in Belize City.
In statements made at the closing and distributed to the press, Prime Minister Musa called it "a moment of satisfaction on all sides." For his part Jeffrey Prosser said, "all's well that end's well."
And sure enough, it ends well for those guys - but what about the consumers? Well, nowhere in any of the remarks does it mention that little thing that this entire competition ordeal started with: and that is lower rates. The Prime Minister refers to "modernization and phone access in areas not presently served by BTL", and a "provision for interconnection." Prosser refers to "modern and efficient services" and says that interconnection is still up for negotiation: "high on our agenda will be the task of co-operating to settle interconnection rates."
So with no promise or even a mention of lower rates, no certainty of interconnection, no mention of a refund, what's the upside? Well for consumers, it may be very little, but for Ashcroft he got his $57 million, for government it got back the $57 million it fronted to push through the sale - and an infusion of hard currency into the baking system, and Prosser, well he gets a company that he's sure is going to make money because it's got a guaranteed rate of return.
According to ICC Vice President of public relations, Rene Henry, ICC's executives will go to BTL tomorrow to mete with staff and management and plan to take over operations immediately. According to Henry, there will be no transition - CEO Dean Boyce and all Carlisle's employees have gone for good.
And while there's not much to go around, the good news is that Prosser has announced his intention to spend another US $16 million to buy over the remaining 16% of BTL from small to medium sized local shareholders at what we calculate to be a per share value of $5.90 each, almost 6 times their original value. At a total of US $105 million, it's being described as the biggest single transaction in Belize's history and according to our reports, ICC will celebrate the closing of the deal at a party tonight.
And for what it's worth, in a final flourish that the good lord is sure to cherish; the much maligned Michael Ashcroft seemed to have made a mild public relations comeback as he topped our online poll which asked: Who's best for BTL. Ashcroft got 53% of the 510 votes, while Prosser got only 13%.