We won’t talk: Momi underbidder

August 27, 2009 09:38:37 AM

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A representative of the second highest bidder in Tuesday’s auctioning of a partially complete Momi Bay Resort project said his party has refused to participate in any more negotiations regarding the deal. 

Suva architect Ashok Balgovind, an associate of US based businessman Jay Singh - the principal interest behind the bid - told Fiji Live his party left in disgust when it realized it had been dealt with an unfair hand.

“The hammer went down three times on our $35 million offer but they continued and came up with a $41 million bid from an unnamed party. We were going to negotiate with the FNPF to settle for $40 million and instead of allowing us to negotiate for that, they went ahead with the $41 million bid,” Balgovind said.

“They were just trying to push us up and it was done in bad taste.”

He was commenting against property professionals Bayleys International, who had been appointed by the Fiji National Provident Fund to market the sale of the property and to carry out the auction, after the pension fund announced in June that it had taken over the project. 

“I believe it’s all just a sham and a scam. I don’t think there’s anyone behind the $41 million bid. After the auction, they came over to us and told us that they heard we wanted to bid for $50 million. We told them no and that we refuse to have anything more to do with them, so we are no longer participating in that. All we can say is that we are really disappointed,” Balgovind said. 

Repeated telephone calls made to Bayley’s Fiji representative Philip Toogood was not answered, but he had told Fiji Live late Tuesday night that negotiations were being carried out with the highest bidder to try to secure a higher price.
 
“We are still holding negotiations and it looks like this will drag on. It might take a few hours or even a few days…I can’t say for sure when negotiations will end,” Toogood said. 

The Momi Bay Resort project, which had been surrounded in controversy since it began two years ago, was taken over by FNPF who had secured its position as first mortgagee. 

This was after the project ran into difficulties when its New Zealand developer Matapo Ltd collapsed along with its financier Bridgecorp Ltd.

FNPF had reportedly poured over $80 million into the development of the first stage of the Momi Bay project, which went under the hammer on Tuesday.

The pension fund’s desire to recover much of that $80m is now in doubt.