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Sarkis Izmirlian – Armenian billionaire from Switzerland

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Born in 1972, Sarkis Izmirlian is the heir to the billionaire fortune and peanut business of the famous Armenian Izmirlian family from Geneva (Switzerland). The grandfather of billionaire Sarkis Izmirlian ended up in Switzerland at the beginning of the 20th century, fleeing the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. The founder of the family business was Sarkis’s father, Tigran Izmirlian, whom the European press called the “peanut king” half a century ago. Already at the end of the 1960s, Izmirlian senior managed to take control of almost the entire world export of Gambian peanuts and create his own peanut empire – the Swiss company “Alimenta”.

Sarkis himself began working in the family business from a young age, and after studying at the university, in parallel with the peanut business, he began to engage in large construction projects in Switzerland, Great Britain and other countries of the world. In 2005, one of the Izmirlian family companies acquired a 13-acre (5.26 hectare) plot of land that houses the London City Hall. Members of the Izmirlian family have been major patrons of art in Armenia since 1988.

In 1994, the Izmirlian Foundation was founded in Yerevan, which is engaged in the development of business and education, and in 2013 the medical center of the same name was opened. Sarkis Izmirlian himself is also the founder of the fund in support of Armenian organizations in Switzerland: the fund financed the construction and restoration of Armenian churches, schools and cultural centers in different parts of Europe and Armenia. The Swiss Armenian annually allocates large funds for the activities of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund and the All-Armenian Benevolent Union (AGBU).

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US Court Trashes China Contractor Over Baha Mar Takeover

A US court has strongly backed entrepreneur Sarkis Izmirlian over the Baha Mar construction scandal, throwing out a Chinese state-owned contractor’s request to dismiss his fraud and breach of contract suit, and backing his claims of contractor misconduct.

New York State Supreme Court Judge Andrew Borrok in late May found that China Construction America (CCA), a subsidiary of the state-owned China State Construction Engineering Corporation, “actively sought” to expel Izmirlian’s company from the project by disrupting Baha Mar’s finances and supply of labour.

The incendiary finding, which confirms lower court judgments, says in effect that the Chinese government sabotaged its private Bahamian partner’s interests in order to seize control of the project, which CCA and state-run Export-Import Bank of China eventually sold to Hong Kong-based jewelry and gaming giant Chow Tai Fook.

The ruling confirms that the $2.25bn case brought by Izmirlian and his company BML Properties will finally go to a bench trial in August 2024, more than six years after Izmirlian sued CCA. The trial dates were set in February this year.

Judge Borrok ruled that a CCA executive vice president pulled around 700 Chinese workers from the Baha Mar construction site just months before its completion deadline, then misled the then-prime minister that the project could be completed on time.

The pulling of the workers came about “with the express purpose of causing CCA to stop work” and gain leverage over the project, including making demands for more money, Borrok wrote, according to court documents seen by the Bahamas’ Tribune daily.

CCA also “diverted resources and key personnel” to other CCA property interests in the Bahamas, he wrote.

The result for Izmirlian was the loss of his $830m investment in the project, while CCA received hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue to complete it.

"BML Properties lost its entire investment [of an estimated] $830m in tangible and intangible assets, including land and leased facilities, improvements, personal property, contracts, approvals, hotel assets, intellectual property, intangible personal property, casino operations and licence, and cash.

“The defendants, by contrast, made over $700m,” Borrok wrote.

Baha Mar, while still under Izmirlian’s control, filed for bankruptcy protection in the US in mid-2015.

However, under the supervision of the Bahamas Supreme Court, control of the property was transferred to its Chinese financiers and then to a Hong Kong shell company, which sold the property to Chow Tai Fook.

The transfer to Chow Tai Fook was followed by accusations that the government minister responsible for negotiating the deal failed in earlier attempts to get kickbacks from Izmirlian.

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Sarkis Izmirlian

The Largest Second Home Development in the Western Hemisphere Closer to Completion: Baha Mar, the Bahamas

It’s the most talked about second home resort in the western world, located on a shimmering Bahamian beach dubbed the new French Riviera. Baha Mar is a $3.5 BILLION mega-resort under construction now in Nassau, The Bahamas. Thousands of construction crews are working around the clock, working so diligently they add one full story to the…

Billionaire hotelier buys Overtown store for $6M

Sarkis Izmirlian also bought a Wynwood assemblage in April for $26.4M

The billionaire, one-time developer of Baha Mar in the Bahamas is adding to his collection of properties in Miami’s Wynwood and Overtown.

A trust tied to Sarkis Izmirlian paid $6.6 million for an Overtown convenience store with a lot totaling 25,906 square feet at 295 Northwest 20th Street, records show. The sale equates to $254 per square foot for the site.

Refat Al Tawil of Miami sold the property. It was last purchased in 2006 for $1.15 million, records show.

The buyer is tied to a Delaware company, Miami Development 2122 Trustee, Inc., which is the same company Izmirlian used to buy an assemblage in Wynwood for $26.4 million in April. He is seeking to build a hotel with a retail and restaurant component on that assemblage.

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The convenience store, known as O’s Overtown Food Market, totals about 3,000 square feet. It is zoned T5-O, meaning that a developer can build a multifamily, retail, or mixed-use project up to five stories.

Izmirlian also owns properties at 199 Northwest 20th Street and at 236 Northwest 22nd Street in Miami.

Izmirlian was an original developer of Baha Mar, a massive casino resort in Nassau, the Bahamas. He ultimately lost his $845 million investment in Baha Mar when Chinese bankers foreclosed on the unfinished property in 2015, according to published reports. The lenders sold the project to a Hong Kong conglomerate in late 2016 and it was completed in 2018.

Overtown is a historic African American community and is the second oldest neighborhood in Miami. Property values are rising and investors are buying up older properties due to the neighborhood’s proximity to downtown Miami and Wynwood, as well as its designation as an Opportunity Zone. Izmirlian’s site is just outside the Opportunity Zone. Virgin Trains USA’s MiamiCentral station is also located in the neighborhood.

Last month, Spaghetti western movie star Francisco Martínez-Celeiro sold a 72,903-square foot warehouse in Overtown at 690 Northwest 13th Street for $9.5 million . In May, Miami-based BrickOne Group, led by Costantino Cicchelli, Frank Rodriguez Melo and Stefano Garofoli, acquired 72 units at 419 to 439 Northwest Eighth Street in Overtown, for nearly $81,000 per unit.

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Sarkis ‘I’d have saved’ $500m if CCA told truth

Baha Mar's original developer Sarkis Izmirlian.

As of Monday, September 9, 2024

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By NEIL HARTNELL 

Tribune Business Editor 

[email protected]

BAHA Mar’s original developer would not have spent $500m on preparing for the failed March 2015 opening if he “had known the truth” that its main contractor was about to bust the deadline.

Sarkis Izmirlian and his BML Properties vehicle, in their post-trial filings with the New York State Supreme Court, asserted “there is only one just result” possible from the two-week August hearing - that China Construction America (CCA) be ordered to pay a minimum $1.623bn as compensation for losses stemming from the project’s failure and their subsequent ouster as developer.

With that figure allegedly increasing by $208,356 daily, given the 9 percent interest rate attached, Mr Izmirlian and his company recalled that during the trial he informed Judge Andrew Borrok he would have done “just about everything differently” if the Chinese state-owned contractor had been honest that “the deadline was in jeopardy”. But CCA, in its own post-trial briefing submitted to the court, argued it should be awarded $248.2m in damages over its counter-claims that Mr Izmirlian breached the two sides’ investors agreement by failing to give access to the Baha Mar’s books and not gaining its permission for the ultimately-doomed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing (see other article on Page 3B).

The Chinese contractor also alleged it was unaware Baha Mar faced “severe financial trouble” prior to November 2014, alleging that Mr Izmirlian and the project were “in a liquidity crisis of their own making”, and that “insolvency was inevitable” because the developer had “admittedly ‘bombed’ its own deliverables” required to meet the March 27, 2017, opening deadline.

However, Mr Izmirlian and BML Properties countered that they would have done everything possible to conserve cash, and not ramped up operational preparations, if CCA had been straight about the likelihood the resort would not receive its temporary occupancy certificate (TCO) in time and the opening date would be missed.

“If BML Properties had known the truth it would have done ‘just about everything differently’: ‘Conserved cash’ - about $500m; not started marketing, hiring, training; removed work from CCA; and, possibly, filed suit earlier,” Mr Izmirlian and his corporate vehicle asserted.

“BML Properties, as Baha Mar’s day-to-day manager, directed Baha Mar to act in reliance upon CCA’s representations that it would meet the deadline by opening reservations; placing ads; hiring and training employees; scheduling entertainment; bringing in $4m-plus for the casino; obtaining equipment; loading mini-bars; and directing third-party operators to prepare to open.

“CCA argued that BML Properties relied unreasonably, but every witness who was asked believed that the project could be open by March 27. It is customary to rely on the construction manager regarding scheduling, manpower and life and fire safety. BML Properties did. CCA was responsible to inform Baha Mar if the deadline was in jeopardy. CCA did not.”

As a result of missing the March 27 target, Mr Izmirlian testified at trial: “We had to contact every single person that was coming on March 27. We had to reimburse them, not only for what they had paid us but their airfare. We had to tell the world that Baha Mar was not going to be open.....

“We had staff we were still paying. We had our power bills we had to pay. You know, think about having hired thousands of people who open thousands of rooms and now we’re at the end of June. So, basically three months later. Bills add up.”

David Bones, the specialist relied upon by Mr Izmirlian to determine the extent of his losses and damage, added: “The actual world is, as Mr Izmirlian testified, [they] had to spend $330m leading up to the opening, had no revenue coming in, had 2,400 employees burning at a payroll of between $5 and $7m a month with no cash flow coming in which caused the credit facility and the funds available to dry up very quickly.”

Baha Mar’s original developer added that CCA refused to restart construction and provide a new completion date while using the missed opening as leverage to demand payments it was not due. Given this situation, Mr Izmirlian said any new financing provided by himself would be akin to “throwing money into a black hole”, and thus Baha Mar headed for its liquidity crunch and Chapter 11 filing.

“After CCA missed the deadline, it continued attempting to force Baha Mar to pay undue money, refusing to provide a completion date,” Mr Izmirlian and BML Properties alleged. “CCA ‘reduc[ed] numbers and resources’ and work halted. [Tiger] Wu admitted before government officials that CCA ‘delayed works on purpose’.

“BML Properties tried to secure funding. CCA demanded more money while refusing to restart construction. Additional contributions from BML Properties would have been ‘“throwing money into a black hole’. Thus the project continued spending money without relief from, for example, key money, guests or condo sales, and plunged deeper into liquidity crisis, making bankruptcy inevitable.”

Summing up, they argued: “Two decades after Sarkis Izmirlian conceived of Baha Mar, BML Properties got its day in court. The evidence overwhelmingly confirmed that CCA defrauded BML Properties, breached their investors agreement by acting against ‘the best interests’ of the project and caused BML Properties to lose its entire $845m investment.

“CCA’s top executives took the stand but neither rebutted BML Properties’ veil-piercing case nor explained their interference with China Export-Import Bank or improper payments to the son of a Bahamian government official.

“Their testimony boiled down to the incredible claim that the March 27, 2015, deadline was not ‘firm’ and that CCA tried its best, notwithstanding work stoppages, diversion of resources and obfuscation. On this record, there is only one just result: The court should enter judgment against all defendants for $845m plus interest to compensate BML Properties for its loss.” That interest currently stands at $778.432m.

The Government official referred to is Sir Baltron Bethel, ex-prime minister Perry Christie’s senior policy adviser, who at the time was one of the administration’s point persons charged with handling the Baha Mar dispute. Tribune Business revealed in 2022 how CCA had paid $2.4m to Notarc Management Group, an entity headed by Sir Baltron’s son, Leslie, when the Baha Mar controversy was at its peak.

Both Sir Baltron and his son denied to this newspaper that CCA’s payments to Notarc Management Group influenced the former’s stance towards the dispute and its participants, or his advice to the Government and its actions, after Mr Izmirlian filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in summer 2015.

Sir Baltron said he had acted “with complete integrity and objectivity” on the Government’s behalf in helping to resolve the Baha Mar controversy, and there was no connection or interaction between himself and Notarc “at that time”. Leslie Bethel, meanwhile, asserted that claims of anything untoward over the $2.4m payments were “political mischief”, and that they were “unrelated” to anything to do with Baha Mar.

CCA and its attorneys, too, denied that the $2.4m payments represented “a bribe or conspiracy” to influence the then-government.

John Burlingame, the US lawyer for CCA Bahamas and its affiliates, repeatedly told the New York State Supreme Court during a May 2023 hearing there was “no evidence” to back the “very, very serious” allegations.

However, Mr Izmirlian and his team have been unwilling to let the matter drop.

In last week’s legal filings they alleged: “CCA secretly paid Notarc (run by a Bahamian official’s son) for years, and asked Leslie Bethel to intervene with his father when Bahamian politics did not go CCA’s way. The same month Sir Baltron Bethel asked CCA how it wanted negotiations to proceed, CCA paid Notarc nearly $100,000.”

ExposedU2C 5 days, 23 hours ago

Vomit Christie, Wicked Greedy Witch Maynard-Gibson, Bag Man Baltron, and Un-Justice Winder, should all be rotting in prison for their handsomely rewarded roles played in helping the Chinese Communist Party swindle the Irzmirlian family out of mega millions of dollars.

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