Maloney in $200M double deal finances Hyatt, Rock Hard cement expansion

ight years after it was first planned, construction of a new Hyatt Hotel is to finally begin this year, with the hotel opening its doors by 2026, as part of a US$100 million ($200 million) financing deal prominent businessman Mark Maloney has struck with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).

While US$90 million ($180 million) is to build the hotel, a trade finance agreement worth US$10 million ($20 million) will link Maloney with another cement maker and Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, to import cement-making materials for Maloney’s Rock Hard Cement. Dangote Cement is the continent’s largest producer.

The deals were signed with Afreximbank, represented by Gwen Mwaba, director and global head of trade finance, on day two of the bank’s Annual Meetings and AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum at the Baha Mar Convention Centre in Nassau on Thursday.

Maloney revealed that his company had been working with Afreximbank on the $330 million (US$165 million) Hyatt project, and the bank had agreed to “take the lead on the debt side” by financing the Bay Street hotel’s construction.

“It will be the springboard for what we believe is going to be major in the hotel business in Barbados because the banks have been hesitant in lending money on greenfield projects, meaning new projects,” the developer said. “The banks are waiting for the first deal to be done to do the next deal, so hopefully this will show that there is confidence in lending money to such projects because Afreximbank is a large bank and has shown that it has confidence in Barbados and the region.”

He said construction should start within a few months, “hopefully, by the fourth quarter of this year”, with completion expected in 18 months to two years.

In July 2016, Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced that a Hyatt affiliate had entered into a management agreement with Vision Developments Inc. for a Hyatt Centric hotel at Carlisle Bay. The hotel, named Hyatt Centric Carlisle Bay, Barbados, was expected to open in 2019 and mark the first Hyatt-branded hotel here.

But in May 2020, it was reported that Hyatt had switched from the Hyatt Centric brand to the Hyatt Ziva all-inclusive resort brand. The new Hyatt Ziva Barbados project was scheduled to open in 2022 with 380 guest rooms, 40 condominiums and six premier rooms.

The trade finance facility secured by Maloney will seek to help his Rock Hard Cement expand, first in Barbados and Guyana.

“We will be manufacturing regionally, and then expanding on those opportunities. Having the facility through Afreximbank, we are then able to forge relationships with their other customers,” Maloney explained, adding that one such relationship would be with Dangote Cement to purchase raw materials.

Afreximbank president Benedict Oramah said the deal was “very significant”.

“Maloney Group is a major cement manufacturer. It processes clinker into cement and supplies many of the islands. It used to import this clinker from somewhere in Europe. But now with this facility means the clinker is likely to be coming from Dangote Cement,” he said. “This is an example of the kind of changes we will be seeing in the coming days, weeks, months and years.”

Maloney praised Afreximbank for stepping in where local banks have been reluctant to lend for new projects.

He sidestepped questions about whether the deal with the bank would affect cement prices, focusing instead on the regional impact and sustainability of domestic manufacturing.

Maloney said the region needs to build up cement manufacturing capacity to meet booming demand, referring to comments from Guyanese President Irfaan Ali that his country is using more cement than Dubai.

“Guyana is quite a market right now. It’s the Dubai of the region, so we need to be able to build the industry to support the markets and to be able to do that, we need to have financing,” the businessman said.

“We are committed to building plants throughout the region and being able to supply the cement, because you do not want to run out of cement…When you are reliant on another country to manufacture cement for the region, it’s all great when things are good, but when there’s volatility in various places in the world and when those supply chains are disrupted by war and by other things, it leaves us uneasy. So to be able to control our own destiny by being able to control the manufacture and supply of the raw materials is important.”

Maloney estimated Barbados uses about 90 000 tonnes of cement a year “in good times”, adding: “I think that right now we’re probably quite close to that and I see it being a bubble that is going to burst because the amount of projects that are in the pipeline – Pendry Hotel, Sandals, Royalton, to name a few.”

He noted those three hotel projects alone make up over 700 new hotel rooms, over 10 per cent of Barbados’s existing 6 000 hotel rooms, “not to mention all the other condominium, housing and infrastructure projects”.

Maloney said: “Pray that we don’t have a world event that will have a negative impact on our economy and that we’ll be able to see the fruits of all the work that has been put in by the public and private sector to be able to facilitate investment and to be able to achieve the goals that we have for Barbados.

“There’s no reason that Barbados can’t be the gem of the Caribbean that other people look to come in to set up shop similar to Afreximbank to do business around the region. So that’s all involved and we’re looking forward to being part of the journey that the country benefits from.”

dawneparris@barbadostoday.bb