(Barbados Nation) Almond Resorts Inc. was warned about its high debt but did not heed the caution, a former director disclosed yesterday.
Independent Senator Geoffrey Cave, a long-standing director of Almond Resorts, said while he admired the resort’s owner Ralph Taylor and his myriad achievements, he had realized that Almond’s problem was the speed with which it wanted to expand and its problem of debt.
He said he had warned Almond, after it had bought Casuarina and the Morgan Bay, St Lucia property, that its high debt could lead the company into serious trouble.
Saying he had feared that a hurricane could have struck Barbados and that Almond, with its high debt load, could have gone under, Cave added: “The hurricane was in fact the recession, and that was worse than a physical hurricane.”
