Local Business
Lund lives in hope of projects
(CNS): Local realtor Kim Lund has pointed to fifteen development projects that he says will start this year or next that will get the property industry back on track. In his latest report, the agent, who is known for maintaining an upbeat approach to even the worst state of the real estate market, included four projects that have started but listed the cruise dock in George Town, the special economic technology zone and a new 5 star hotel resort in Colliers at the eastern end of Grand Cayman in his wish list. He said after “a decade of paralysis, government has committed the country to an economic stimulus package” that would lead Cayman back to prosperity. Lund said major decisions had been made on projects but action was now needed, not more bureaucracy.
Supporting some unpopular projects, such as the dredging of the North Sound channel, the moving of the West Bay Road and the East End Seaport, Lund said that after the last “two very difficult years, the country needed to bring to fruition the positive impact from these initiatives, within the economy, this year.”
The realtor said the lack of development over the last ten years had led to Cayman falling behind the curve, but he believed an aggressive plan was now in place to build Cayman’s economy back up.
“A major element of the stimulus is to fast track some new development and improvements to the country’s infrastructure, which will provide a more immediate boost to the economy, while creating a positive longer term impact on jobs and businesses,” he said in his summer report.
Lund was particularly hopeful about comments made by government about allowing the Dart group to move the West Bay Road to facilitate the redevelopment of the former Courtyard Marriot as a new beach front resort. He said this was a “bold move” by government.
“The impact for development on Seven Mile Beach, which was virtually stalled, is enormous, not to mention providing more land for the very popular Public Beach,” Lund said. “The area impacted is the section of road between West Bay and George Town that is very close to the sea.”
He added that aside from being vulnerable to storms, the road limited the prime beachfront land, which was too narrow to be developed, but he said now it could provide a great economic benefit to the country.
“With the road being moved further inland, this land can now serve as another location that will provide a long term economic gain. It will do so by enabling development and creating thousands of jobs through construction and, eventually, hospitality industry and affiliated positions,” he argued.
Not everyone agrees with Lund, however, as concerns recently have been raised that the moving of the West Bay Road will signal the end of access to the famous beach for locals.
Water company still in negotiations for new franchise
(CNS): Consolidated Water, the private firm which supplies customers in the West Bay area, has reported a fall in sales in Cayman in its first quarter operating results. The firm, which operates in several other jurisdictions around the world, said that for the three months ended 31 March 2011 total revenues were around $13.9 million, compared with about $14.7 million in the first quarter of 2010. CEO Rick McTaggart also revealed that the firm had not yet come to an agreement with the Cayman government over the company’s new franchise agreement but had gained a temporary two month extension of its license.
He said that Consolidated was notified by government last week that it had extended its existing retail water franchise until 4 July this year in order to facilitate the completion of negotiations for a new franchise agreement in Grand Cayman. “This process has been more complicated, and is taking longer, than initially anticipated, but we remain optimistic that a satisfactory conclusion to the negotiations will eventually be forthcoming," the water boss said.
In its announcement the firm stated that retail water revenues of roughly $6.4 million during the most recent quarter the same as the prior year’s first quarter.
“The total volume of water sold through the Company's retail water operations in the Cayman Islands decreased by 16% when compared with the first quarter of 2010,” Consolidated said in a release. “However, all of the decrease represented water sold to Water Authority – Cayman in 2010 in order to meet WAC's needs while its Red Gate plant was under refurbishment.”
The volume of water sold by the company to its normal retail customers varied by less than one percent, the firm revealed. It also said that revenue loss relating to WAC in 2010 was offset by a 2.3 percent inflation-related adjustment to base rates because of the increase in the consumer price indices used to determine rate adjustments. Consolidated also pointed out that higher energy costs from increases in fuel and electricity prices were passed on to retail customers.
Consolidated gross profit decreased four percent to approximately $5.3 million in the three months compared with approximately $5.5 million in the first quarter of 2010, the firm said, adding that profit on retail revenues was relatively consistent with the prior-year period at $3,492,639 versus $3,531,821. Profit on bulk revenues increased to $1,564,472 from $1,360,579.
"Revenues and gross profit generated by our retail franchise operation remained consistent with the same period last year in spite of reduced sales volumes, reflecting a modest inflation-related base rate adjustment in January as well as higher energy pass-through charges,” said McTaggart.
“While government air and cruise ship arrival data clearly show more tourist visitors to Grand Cayman during the first quarter of this year when compared to 2010, this activity has yet to translate into higher retail sales volumes. The profitability of our services business segment continued to be adversely affected by a lull in new project activity during the first quarter of 2011," he added.
Bank expands mobile phone services
(CNS): For the first time anywhere in the Caribbean some bank customers will be able to use their mobile to pay bills and transfer money from one mobile banking customer to another. The services are being offered exclusively through FirstCaribbean’s Mobile Banking Bill Pay and Third Party Payment services. The bank said its customers can register an unlimited number of third parties to their mobile banking account as long as they are listed on FirstCaribbean’s Internet Banking service allowing them to meet monthly bills, “any time, any where”, using any type of mobile phone.
In a publicity release the bank said the services are available immediately in addition to the original capabilities of mobile banking, including the ability to make balance inquiries, transfer funds between accounts and set alerts to inform users when their accounts have reached minimum or maximum cash balances.
“We are truly excited about these two new additional features to our Mobile Banking service,” said Chief Administrative Officer, Mahes Wickramasinghe. “We believe that we have an excellent product that will help our customers save time by enabling them to “bank on the go”.
Country Head, Tom Crawford, Managing Director – Retail, Wealth and Small Business, also expressed confidence that customers would appreciate these new mobile banking options and anticipated that the added value would lead to an increase in the adoption rates for the mobile banking product.
“These new payment features will be a boon for our customers in the Cayman Islands. One of the key benefits of our Mobile Banking service is that you don’t need to have a smart phone to use it as it is text message-based. We expect that a number of persons keen on this added convenience of banking on the go will gravitate to FirstCaribbean’s mobile banking as the leader in the market,” he added.
The bank said that itsmobile banking service is safe with stringent security measures in place to protect customers’ financial information and details from third parties. Text messages will only be sent to the mobile phone number that is registered with the bank by the customer, who must verify their identity at the time of registration. Moreover, account numbers are never sent to the mobile phone.
FirstCaribbean’s Mobile Banking service is free, however, SMS charges will be the same as what any customer would pay their cellular service provider for text messages via long and/ or short codes. For further information visit www.firstcaribbeanbank.com or contact 1-800-744-3249.
Chairman’s retirement heralds changes at Walkers
(CNS): Offshore legal firm Walkers has overhauled its senior management team and elected a new global managing partner and a new chairman, according to reports in the industry press. Managing partner Grant Stein will become the firm's chairman from 1 July when Wayne Panton retires after more than 20 years at the firm and three years in the chair. As a result Diarmad Murray will step into Stein’s shoes as the new global managing partner. Murray will continue as head of the Cayman Islands’ office for the next three years.
Other management changes will see the firm's practice managing partner, Jonathan Tonge, swapping roles with regions managing partner, Ian Ashman. Tonge's new role will see him move from Cayman to Jersey, where he will also head the local office. Ashman will remain in Dublin.
Diarmad’s election to global managing partner had unanimous support of the firm’s partners and he was described as doing an “excellent job reshaping the Cayman Islands office over the past two years.”
The changes come two years after a radical overhaul of the firm’s management structure, in which the firm reorganised into five practice-focused divisions. The firm has expanded in the past decade, growing from the Cayman office to offices around the world, from Hong Kong to Ireland.
“A lot of our major clients have expanded rapidly and globally and we’ve been fortunate enough to be able to help them,” Stein said of the firm’s globalisation programme.
Nor is the expansion over. Stien said further expansions are likely to be in growing economies, particularly in Asia. Brazil and Russia are also areas where Walkers is directing its attention. “We have focus groups at the moment that are very active in relation to these markets,” revealed Stein.
Murray said the firm’s prospects in practice areas such as investment funds and finance were looking good. “It’s a fairly rosy picture at the moment,” he added.
In addition to taking over the global managing partner role, Murray will continue to focus on developing the Cayman office’s support functions. Last year this resulted in the recruitment of Neil Sherlock as chief financial officer and David Smailes as chief information and technology officer.