Baha Mar ownership confirmed, William Hill sportsbook launches

The unresolved ownership question hanging over the troubled $4.2b Baha Mar integrated resort appears to have finally reached a satisfactory conclusion.

On Tuesday, the Bahamas Tribune reported that the Bahamas subsidiary of Hong Kong conglomerate Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE) had indeed officially closed its purchase of Baha Mar from the property’s main creditor, China Export-Import Bank (EXIM), by the stipuulated December 1 deadline.

CTFE was identified as Baha Mar’s buyer back in April, following EXIM’s takeover of the bankrupt property from its original developer Sarkis Izmirlian. But the sale was conditional on a number of factors, including the unfinished property’s main contractor, China Construction America (CCA), achieving “substantial completion” of the project by October 15.

With CCA warning this summer that it was already behind schedule, the CTFE sale appeared anything but a certainty. Moreover, the sale agreement stipulated that the deal needed to be concluded by December 1 or else the Bahamian government was entitled to rescind the generous (some say overly so) tax breaks and incentives it promised to Baha Mar’s new owners.