Little-White property Orange Grove put up for auction
Published:Friday | February 3, 2012 | 12:00 AM
Avia Collinder, Business Writer
The 10-acre Orange Grove Great House property that is the centrepiece of the Outameni natural history attraction in Trelawny has been put up for sale by auction.
The property and great house are owned by Orange Valley Holdings Limited but the Outameni Experience attraction is separate from the landholdings, and is not included in the auction, and the business continues uninterrupted.
Orange Valley Holdings, which is principally owned by Lenbert Little-White and associated company Palm Productions Limited, has investments in film and video production, tourism and other enterprises.
Another of Little-White's companies, Mediamix, was reinstituted as a shareholder in 2008, but it is unclear whether it still retains any ownership of Orange Valley. Other ordinary shareholders include Damali Little-White and Cheryl, while the company's financier NIBJ holds a block of 32.5 million preference shares.
Little-White, Cheryl Ryman and Heather Little-White each own one-third share of Palm Productions, according to the latest annual returns.
It effectively gives Lennie Little-White the largest stake in Orange Valley Holdings. He is also manager of the Orange Grove property.
Companies Office records indicated up to late January that Orange Valley was not in receivership.
Except to distance Outameni Experience from the takeover of the property, Little-White has declined to comment on this story on the advice, he said, of his lawyer and citing ongoing negotiations with Orange Valley's bankers.
Outameni Experience is registered as a business entity with Orange Valley Holdings as its proprietor, according to Companies Office records, but Little-White has denied the association.
"Regarding the brand 'Outameni Experience', I state again that it is not owned by Orange Valley Holdings Limited," he said in writing on Thursday.
He also forwarded correspondence from Capital & Credit Merchant Bank, which acknowledges that the bank has no legal claim to the attraction.
The Outameni attraction was conceptualised in 2007, about a decade after Little-White and partners reportedly acquired the Orange Grove property. The idea was to leverage the historic sugar mill and 18th-Century great house into a money-making venture.
The estimated cost of the project, inclusive of pre-feasibility studies through construction to implemen-tation, was approximately US$2.48 million (J$210 million).
The financing projections ahead of the project's execution included Orange Valley Holdings and Palm Productions providing 35 per cent of the cost by way of equity and loan; 20 per cent equity from National Investment Bank of Jamaica, which has since merged with Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ); combination loan financing of 17 per cent from DBJ through one of its approved financial institutions, Capital & Credit Merchant Bank; and a two per cent grant from PROINVEST, a programme backed by the European Union; while the other 26 per cent or US$650,000 would have been sought from an independent equity partner, the project proposal stated.
A cash surplus of US$1.086 million at the end of year five was projected.
At the date of the last annual returns for 2008, Orange Valley Holdings was US$1.03 million in debt.
In February 2011, a J$35-million upgrade of the great house was announced by the managers of the attraction. It's not clear when the creditors stepped in, but the Orange Grove property was put up for auction in January.
No bidders turned up at the auction held on Tuesday, January 24, by auctioneer CD Alexander Realty Limited.