It's been 5 days since the Prime Minister unveiled his plan for BTL and still, no talks have been held between BTL's Communication Workers Union and the government to disclose what's in the deal.
As we've reported, Ashcroft is holding 20% of BTL's shareholdings for the union in a company he calls Sunshine, a mildly cruel play on the name of the failed, management-led Sunrise venture. The union is being offered to buy those shares with financing from Ashcroft's Belize Bank - presumably at $5.24 per share, the same share price Ashcroft got them for.
On Friday, the Prime Minister said that in consideration for offering this financing, and finding, in a hurry, the full US$36 million government needs for the shares, Ashcroft will be offered 12% of BTL's shareholding, bringing his total holdings up to 37%.
But there's a twist: 7NEWS is informed that even with only a third of the holdings, Ashcroft plans to control the company by holding the employee's shares in the Sunshine trust company, and controlling the votes of those shares, thus giving him the effect of controlling 57% of the company.
But that's not all that's in the Ashcroft bag, not nearly. 7NEWS has received credible reports which tell us that Ashcroft will get the 15% guaranteed rate of return that was promised to Jeffrey Prosser. We take that to mean that he'll then take up the other part of the Prosser package: which is taking over the Intelco debt that government had guaranteed. Presumably, he would then - just as Prosser planned to do - add that to his cost of investment, and get it back in his guaranteed rate of return - which is a 15% return on the investment.
All that means is that the same scenario that would have applied for Prosser, will now apparently apply for Ashcroft: telephone ratepayers will have to bear the cost for the failed Intelco experiment. All told, it was a US$50 million experiment which government guaranteed without ever disclosing those guarantees. Still though, Ashcroft is only expected to take up a portion of the debt, meaning that ratepayers should get some ease, while taxpayers will have to cover the rest of it.
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