Leader of Government Business and Bank Support Ritz

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

The embroiled Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman project received two voices of support in the past week, one from the Leader of Government Business, the Hon McKeeva Bush, and one from its financers, the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Mr Bush, reading a statement on Radio Cayman on Monday, said it was no secret that he had been a supporter of the Ritz development from the beginning. "As the minister responsible for tourism, I have renewed my support and efforts to see this worthy project come to fruition,"

Last week, the Ritz terminated general contractor Fluor Daniel Caribbean Ltd and had its own development team take over the project. Although the developers continue to maintain that the hotel will be ready for opening this year on 18 December, many local construction industry experts have said that was not possible, including the ousted Fluor Daniel company.

Mr Bush addressed the Ritz schedule issue in his on-air statement. "Given recent escalating media speculation about the project, I felt obligated to conduct renewed due diligence about the soundness of the project and the feasibility of a late 2004 opening," he said, "In February, I met with representatives from the primary lender for the Ritz-Carlton project, the Royal Bank of Scotland, at their London headquarters. I attended The Ritz-Carlton media event in New York City and talked with top executives of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company LLC. This past weekend, I visited the construction site following Fluor Daniels' departure to assess the progress."

The Leader of Government Business then read verbatim a letter of 3 March from Roy Harris, the Managing Director of the Real Estate Finance Group for the Royal Bank of Scotland.

"It was indeed a great pleasure to meet you in London the week before last and hear at first hand the strong support within the Cayman Authorities for the Ritz-Carlton Project," began Mr Harris in his letter, "I said I would write to you and give you some thoughts from the perspective of the Royal Bank of Scotland in respect of this project.

"Clearly the project has not followed an easy path and we have considerable admiration for the manner in which the developer, Mike Ryan, has overcome many obstacles to get to the point where it has been possible to announce, with great conviction, a fixed date in December 2004 for the formal opening ceremonies."

Mr Harris expressed dismay with Fluor Daniel. "…Generally we have been disappointed with the performance of the contractor, which resulted in us making a specific trip to their headquarters in the United States to discuss our concerns some 12 months ago. Despite various promises of improvement, the position has not changed, and with our support and encouragement, Mr Ryan and his colleagues have progressively placed themselves in a position whereby they have greater control of the construction project to ensure completion by the announced date."

The letter indicated that Royal Bank of Scotland representatives would soon visit the Cayman Islands. "We are highly confident that at our forthcoming review on-island, we will be able to view, for the first time (not withstanding that the main contractor has still not been able to provide such) a detailed project plan identifying sub-contractor timelines to achieve the desired objective of a December opening," Mr Harris wrote.

Despite the difficulties, Mr Harris said that the Royal Bank of Scotland continued to deploy resources to the project to support a satisfactory completion. "We remain convinced that this will be a successful project which will be of significant benefit to the Island not only in terms of employment during the construction process phase, but more importantly in the future in terms of employment within the hotel operations, and also in terms of revenue generation within Cayman."

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