And on another, related front, the name has changed from 'Pillow Talk' to 'E-com' but the game remains the same for Michael Ashcroft. 7NEWS has obtained a copy of the revised draft agreement between E-com and GOB, where Ashcroft would bail government out of its BTL mess, for a price.
In the Pillow Talk deal, Ashcroft got a break on stamp duty, no taxes on dividends and the opportunity to buy the shares cheaper than he sold them. The deal with E-com assures much of the same, except that now Ashcroft would pay even less for the shares. The proposed purchase price is $5.24, when government bought them from him for $5.48 a share 15 months ago. Ashcroft would buy fewer B shares, but he would also receive more C shares, still controlling 15% of the company's shares. With his C shares and the government's shares, it would give them the combined power to appoint three directors each, a total of 6 of the eight directors and control of the company.
So while those changes are proposed, the big question is in the settlement agreement. In the first settlement agreement, government would have agreed to write off the Belize Bank's $13 million in tax debts an in exchange Ashcroft would drop his arbitration proceedings against it in London. Well under this revised agreement, it still proposes to write off the tax debt, but as the settlement of a $12.2 million dollar amount that government supposedly owes Carlisle for past dividends and other considerations.
It's a highly complex proposal, but at bottom, it means that the unions and the social partners can huff and puff as they may, under the proposal, Carlisle and the Belize Bank would not paying the tax debt into the government treasury, rather they propose to settle it. More than that, under this plan, it doesn't matter who holds how many shares, Ashcroft and government would control the board with 6 of the 8 directors.
