The assets of timber company, Caribbean Resources Limited (CRL) which had been in liquidation since the 2009 upheaval in its T&T-based parent group, CL Financial was sold to Muneshwer’s Limited for US$20m last year, sources say.
The sale of CRL’s 25-acre property at Houston on the East Bank of Demerara was advertised in July of 2013 and concluded in August of last year with the Water Street-based hardware company. There was no public announcement of the sale.
Muneshwer’s Managing Director, Amarnauth Muneshwer, declined to comment on the purchase when contacted by Stabroek News recently.
The property is described as 25 acres in a single contiguous plot with wharf facilities and direct access to the East Bank Demerara Highway.
The property is transported and there is an internal network of roads. It was described as ideal for large scale industrial and commercial activity.
Amid the fallout from CL Financial Ltd’s plight where it had to apply for a bailout from the Trinidad government, CRL came under scrutiny by the authorities here as they attempted to recover monies owed to investors by the CLICO group. CLICO (Guyana) Limited also went under and CRL’s assets were targeted to cover the outstanding amounts.
In April of 2009, CRL was barred from disposing of assets to stave off any money flow between two other companies here and the Trinidad parent company. Prior to the 2009 upheaval, CRL had borrowed approximately $1.5 billion from CLICO (Guyana) and that sum was guaranteed by CL Financial partly by way of debenture registered in the Deeds Registry, initially in the sum of $211 million and with miscellaneous but seemingly unreliable guarantees as to the difference.
The then Insurance Commissioner and Judicial Manager for CLICO (Guyana) , Maria van Beek had secured High Court orders locking down the assets of CRL and another CL Financial subsidiary. The functions of the Insurance Commissioner were subsequently taken over by the Bank of Guyana.
The local National Insurance Scheme, institutional investors and others were left in the lurch at the time that CLICO (Guyana) crashed.
Maurice Solomon and Company functioned as the liquidator in this matter.
