Yesterday government kicked out Jeffrey Prosser and his directors from BTL's boardroom, but getting rid of Jeff Prosser may not be as easy as the Government of Belize had hoped.
Prosser's Vice-President of Public Relations Rene Henry today told 7NEWS that Prosser has paid the Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago US$27 million of Intelco's debt. That means that, combined, Prosser has paid US$28 million for Social Security's shares and US$27 million for Intelco's debt, plus another $3 million to cover Intelco's operating costs. Put that all together and you'll realize that after spending US$60 million Jeffrey Prosser isn't about to just walk away as a minority shareholder. In fact, 7NEWS has received credible but unconfirmed reports indicating that Prosser may be planning to take government to court in Miami.
But officially, that's not what Prosser's Public Relations Chief Rene Henry is saying. He told us that Prosser as an American investor has sought the intercession of the US Ambassador to pursue dialogue with the government that can hopefully restore things to were they were before February 9th, meaning that Prosser and his management team would resume control of BTL, a job which we will note they did for a management fee calculated as 6% of the gross earnings, an approximate $7.2 million a year. But while Prosser may have gotten his management fee, he's left owning Intelco which, even in tandem with BTL, is a dubious asset and without it completely useless.
And while government looked sufficiently bold and macho yesterday when it just up and installed a new board after months of being played and punked by Prosser, it may have looked good, but was it legal? Government says that by taking over the Carlisle shares, which were assigned to it from the International Bank of Miami, it controls 11 million of the C shares, a supposed majority which enables it to appoint 4 directors, and enough B shares to appoint two more. But our count of the C shares shows that there are 29 million C shares, so 11 million is not a majority, in fact it's just about a third. The only way government could have a majority of those_ C_ shares is if it is including those shares controlled by Michael Ashcroft.
But outside of all these technicalities, Prosser remains perhaps rightfully bedeviled as a 'malpago' and the hard pay star of the year, he is very much a creature created and empowered by the Government of Belize. It is a government which appeared to have been working at all times to bury the body called Intelco, and Prosser was the only man willing to do it. But to get the American investor to act as basically an undertaker for Glenn Godfrey and government's bad deal, government had to sweeten the deal for him, while at the same time souring the pot for consumers. Sour because the way government worked it our for Prosser, every Intelco debt that he took on would be added to his cost of investment and every dollar would have to come back to him in his 15% guaranteed rate of return, a return which would come from the pockets of rate-payers. Meaning that the strategy at all times was to force consumers to pay for the Intelco disaster. An unfortunate strategy for a government to pursue, but one that it can now hardly abandon easily after Prosser the undertaker buried the Intelco body for US$27 million, and now Prosser the investor wants his fatless pound of flesh to cover the bad deed.
And while all this unfolds on one level, the ever present Michael Ashcroft waits in the wings. Tomorrow, Ashcroft, the unions and Former Chairman Net Vasquez continue with their action in the Supreme Court to have an investigator appointed to review all that government and Prosser have worked out at BTL. And while this happens at the Supreme Court, on another continent Ashcroft continues to pursue arbitration to activate his buyback clause with the Government of Belize.
