The faltering Almond Hotel Group is not only a drag on the financial results of its parent company Neal & Massy, but it contributed significantly to the 2011 net loss of another Barbadian company.
Goddard Enterprises Limited (GEL) has told its shareholders it was forced to write off $14.3 million as a failed investment in the Almond’s Casuarina Hotel here and Almond Morgan Bay in St Lucia.
Goddard’s managing director Martin Pritchard said GEL became a major investor in the two hotels of the Almond Group in late 2004 along with Almond and Barbados Shipping & Trading but now admitted it was a bad investment.
Pritchard told the DAILY NATION: “The write-off was necessary as the hotels had never produced the return over the period 2005 to 2011 and, in fact, the auditors were pressuring us to make a provision so we bit the bullet . . . and we have completely written those investments off.”
Read the full story in today’s DAILY NATION.
