Michael Lee Chin

Michael Lee Chin's AIC of Barbados has acquired through a local affiliate Flow, Sauce Cable Company, the acquisition having won the approval of Cabinet.

However, up to yesterday, both parties to the agreement continued to deny that an agreement had been reached even though Cabinet disclosed on Monday that the companies had sought and won its approval for the consummation of the deal.

Yesterday, Michelle English, general manager of Merit Communication, which operates under the Flow brand in Jamaica, denied that there had been any agreement to acquire Sauce, and declined to state whether there were any negotiations to acquire that firm.

"We haven't acquired Sauce," said English. "We are in discussion with quite a number of (cable) operators.we are under non-disclosure agreement.when a deal is reached we will inform by the way of a press release. Until such time we have no comment."

When contacted, Horace Brown, director at Sauce, was equally silent on the issue, telling the Business Observer that his company would not be able to provide any information at this time.

"At this time, I will not be able to make a comment" he said.
Monday's Cabinet disclosure also came on the heels of the acquisition of CVM Group by Lee Chin.

On Monday, the government told members of the press that Cabinet had approved amendments to the commercial television licence granted to CVM Television, to allow it to sell majority shares to AIC Barbados.

Information Minister Colin Campbell said that the approval cleared the way for Flow to acquire Sauce to enable capital injections to allow the company to continue to do business in Jamaica.

A combination of CVM and Sauce could make Lee Chin one of Jamaica's largest media magnates.

Sauce is the largest cable provider in the Corporate Area, with operation in three zones. It was created from the amalgamation of five cable companies on July 2, 1998: Home Commercial Satellite Limited, Affordable Enterprise Limited, Universal Cable Network Limited, Cabana Cable Limited and Eastern Cable Network Limited.

From the formal launch of Flow in Jamaica in April, there have been rumours that the company has been approaching various cable and Internet providers with acquisition offers.

On Sunday various cable operators, amidst these rumours, placed an advertisement in the print media in which they denied selling their company, and any intention of doing so.
These companies were: Allied Cablevision, D & L Cable, Entertainment Systems Limited, Omni Cable Service, Starcom Limited and Telstar Cable Limited.

Lee Chin is involved in cable operation in Trinidad & Tobago, and The Bahamas.

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