By Al Edwards, Financial EditorTHE ISLAND Life Centre, situated at 6 St. Lucia Avenue, New Kingston, has been sold to the Hendrickson family for US$6.5 million, Wednesday Business has been informed.
The deal was completed and signed off last Friday, but it is not clear at this point what the Hendrickson family intends to do with the 10-storey edifice.
The property was once the flagship headquarters for Island Life Insurance company headed by Oliver Jones. That company floundered amidst the financial sector crisis of the 90s
MAJORITY SHARES
In November 1999, Barbados Mutual, headed by Arthur Bethell, acquired majority shares (46.08 million units out of 72 million issued shares) in Island Life in a deal with the Jamaican Government which was eager to sell assets on its books.
In 2001, the company was taken over completely and eventually was merged with the country's leading life insurer, Life of Jamaica ( LoJ). Life of Jamaica was acquired by the then Barbados Mutual for some US$45 million.
Barbados Mutual rebranded itself in 2002 as Sagicor, as it sought to become a regional player.
As part of the deal, the Government, through its financial sector rehabilitation arm, Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC), headed by Partick Hylton, took on Island's Life's debt and its real estate holdings. FINSAC engaged the services of Dennis Joslin, a Tennesse-based debt collector, to make good on the assets on its books.
For two years Dennis Joslin has been looking to sell the building and had it valued at US$8 million. Last year he shaved US$1 million off the asking price.
The building is a 'Class A, 149,000 square foot commercial complex'. The 10-storey office tower has two floors of retail outlets, consisting of a cinema, a JMMB unit, food court and a branch of RBTT. The top floors house luxury apartments. This complex enjoys 94 per cent occupancy.
The Hendricksons, headed by patriarch Karl, (former chairman of Jamaica Public Service Company), has become one of the country's leading business families with interests in tourism, agriculture and bakery products. Over the last few years, it has been in acquisition mode placing a $500 million bid for the Pegasus and acquiring the old Sutton Place Hotel for $200 million and transforming it into the Kutsford Court Hotel.
INTERST IN NEGRIL CABINS
The family also owns and operates the Courtleigh Hotel in New Kingston, the Sunset Beach Resort & Spa (440 rooms) in Montego Bay and The Ruins at the Falls in Ocho Rios.
In 2002, the Hendricksons expressed an interest in Negril Cabins but backed away. The Hendricksons run their companies via the National Continental Corporation (NCC), a family company founded on baking with interests now in poultry production and processing, construction and hotel management. Last year the Hendricksons made a foray in the region, acquiring a hotel in St. Lucia formerly leased to Club Med.
