Little Dix Bay in Virgin Gorda has been sold but reports are that the current management will remain in place.
The hotel was sold to a Chinese company out of Hong Kong, which is said to already own a string of luxury hotels around the world.
Opposition Leader Dr. D. Orlando Smith confirmed the reports this morning.
Speaking with BVI News Online, Dr. Smith said he, like many other dignitaries, was aware of the establishment’s sale.
He said he received this knowledge through an informal telephone call from Resort Manager Duncan Hogarth.
‘I received a phone call about the sale,’ Dr. Smith said.
Hogarth, Dr. Smith said, informed him that like many other sales of the resort, the current management structure and staff at Little Dix would be kept in place.
Dr. Smith added however, ‘I am aware that the question of severance will come up and that the government of the day should explain the provisions to the people of the BVI and more specifically the workers of Little Dix.’
Employees of the resort were informed of the sale last Saturday when management told them they had already held meetings with the relevant bodies.
‘We were told that the hotel has been sold,’ said one staff member in a correspondence to BVI News Online.
‘What is interesting is they denied this saying it was a rumor but now they can’t keep it under wraps seeing it’s all over the Internet,’ the employee said. ‘The last company owners refuse to pay off the employees saying that everything remains the same. The people are insisting they need their money.’
It is also understood that the hotel’s manager also informed Premier Ralph O’Neal, the Governor, Minister for Natural Resources and Labour Omar Hodge and labour departments in Tortola and Virgin Gorda, of the sale.
Prior to the official announcement of the sale, the management of Little Dix had continued to deny the rumors, which had surfaced since 2009.
Meanwhile, questions loom about whether or not a ‘special agreement’ that exempted Little Dix from the real estate transfer tax when Laurance Rockefeller sold it, was actually transferred in this new sale.
If that exemption was allowed to continue, then the BVI would have lost significantly in the collection of those taxes, especially considering how cash-strapped the Government has been for some time.
Attempts to reach Resort Manager Duncan Hogarth have been unsuccessful.
BVI News will provide updates once information becomes available