The BTL Trust is for Real!

The Dean Barrow administration and its sycophantic BTL Board of Directors have embarked on a full court effort to convince Telemedia employees that they have nothing to gain from the existence of the BTL Employees Trust which claims to own 23% of BTL shareholding.

For months Barrow and his board had sought to deny the very existence of the Trust, but last week the Belize Court of Appeals ruled that the BTL Employees Trust does exist and that it is legitimate.

Last week one of the trustees, former BTL CEO Dean Boyce estimated that the Trust’s shareholding may be worth as much as $85,000,000 and the Trust’s principals are now asking BTL’s employee representatives to come to the table to decide on how their lucrative business will be conducted. To that effect they called for a meeting last night at the Radisson Fort George and hardly seemed nonplussed that only union representatives and two former employees attended.

The word had gotten out that BTL’s management had just about forbidden employees to attend, and of course there was the sustained propaganda that the Trust was an Ashcroft ploy. At last night’s meeting Boyce and his representatives patiently answered all questions and presented all relevant documents.

The union representatives left in a state of mild confusion and no doubt reported back to management. It is unknown what, if anything, they have reported to BTL’s 487 employees. While BTL has been forced to ease back from its earlier assertions about the existence of the Trust, it is now disputing its ownership and has sought to downplay its significance and value in a bulletin to employees and in two front page articles in the Guardian this week.

In the first instance BTL and the Barrow administration now claims that the BTL Employees Trust only “consists of two issued shares in Sunshine Holdings Limited.”

And they further claim: “Employees should be aware that no Trust was created over the 23% shares in Belize Telemedia Limited.

BTL’s management is also claiming that Dean Boyce and Keith Arnold cannot be the trustees because “Both of them should be well aware of the fact that this is a false position. The two issued shares in Sunshine Holdings Limited are now owned by the Government of Belize. Keith Arnold and Dean Boyce have no authority over Sunshine or Telemedia shares.”

BTL sought to downplay the value of the shares by claiming that they are only worth around $34m because “… in July 2007, under the management of Dean Boyce, Telemedia shares were offered to shareholders at $3.00 per share. Thiermon Limited, a company in the Ashcroft group of companies, purchased 8,216,725 shares at this price. Assuming this as a basis, with the issued share capital of Telemedia being 49,552,000 the total value of the shares would be equal to $148,656,000. 23% of this figure would be $34,190,880.”

At this point all this may be premature since employees cannot immediately benefit from their shareholding while the entire company remains the subject of litigation. Employees will no doubt continue to proceed with caution, intimidated by an executive management that has shown it has no compunction in firing employees, such as Keith Acosta, with not even a pretense of pretext, if they’re perceived to be PUP.

The significance of the existence of the Trust, however, is undeniable. By anybody’s valuation the Trust represents a large amount of money, and a significant interest in BTL. Politically the Barrow administration is now seeking to deny the company’s employees, the ones most responsible for BTL’s accomplishment as Belize’s most successful private company, their just share in its glory, equity and yes, profits.

It follows predictably that the continued effort to cheat the men and women of BTL of their rightful share of this legacy will eventually backfire. This is Dean Barrow and the UDP at their most extreme, and a textbook example of the desperation that has overtaken them and now has them shoveling futilely against the tide.

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