The deal to sell the beleaguered Hotel Tower to Canadian Mike Mosgrove seems to be in jeopardy and the fate of payments owed to several employees remains in limbo.
A source close to the deal told Stabroek News that legal teams for both sides met yesterday in a bid to salvage it.
According to the source a memorandum of understanding has not yet been signed and no money has been transferred. “It was still very preliminary”, the source said.
Efforts to contact Mosgrove yesterday proved futile. When contacted, his Public Relations Officer Andrew Weekes said he would get back to Stabroek News but up to press time he hadn’t done so.
Late last month Mosgrove announced that he was buying the hotel at a price pegged at US$8 million. On Tuesday he told Stabroek News that more information on how the sale agreement was coming along will be made available in about “4 to 5 weeks’ time
He said too that he did not want any reports on the development of the agreement in the media as he felt it was doing more “bad than good in getting the hotel sold,”.
Mosgrove had said that in addition to the Main Street property, the 200-acre Emerald Tower Resort, located along the Soeskdye Highway, was part of the sales agreement. He said his company was currently exploring design options for the resort.
However, sources familiar with the deal told this newspaper that the lease for the land which the Emerald Tower Resort occupies will come to an end in three years. The Canadian company does not want to enter into an agreement to have the property, redesigned and rebranded and then be faced with government exercising its option to lease it to someone else in 36 months. So, for now, Panther is focusing its energies on just the Main Street location.
It is unclear if this issue was part of the current negotiations.
On May 23 this year, the hotel abruptly closed. Workers had protested after they were told by way of an anonymous phone call that letters were at the front counter for them. They said when they collected their letters, they learned that that day was the last day of work for them as the hotel was closing. The hotel subsequently said business had declined dramatically in recent times. It assured that assets would be liquidated to pay outstanding amounts to its employees, although it has subsequently broken several promises to pay them.
