The struggling Jamaica Pegasus Hotel was delisted from the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) yesterday after being completely bought out by Quivin International.

The 310-room facility no longer meets the requirements of the JSE as all its shares are owned by Quivin, the JSE said in a release.

At least 20 per cent of a company must be in the hands of at least 100 shareholders, states JSE rules.

Quivin had made its intention to delist the financially strapped company known in the Pegasus’ fourth quarter results.

May 31 was given as the initial date for delisting.

The New Kingston-based hotel lost $392 million in the 12-month period that ended March 31, said the results. Of that, $27 million was used to cover administration and operating expenses in the last three months alone.

Quivin paid the former owner, the Government of Jamaica, almost a billion dollars to acquire about 60 per cent of the Pegasus’s stock units in November 2010.

The Government had upgraded the facilities just months before but the new owners deemed that it was inadequate to compete against the planned entry of the international Marriott Hotel chain.

A new second round of upgrades was announced to complement the half a billion dollars already spent to improve the quality of the hotel’s offerings in a bid to increase revenue.

The hotel began racking up losses in the financial year ended March 31, 2011, incurring pre-tax losses of $78.6 million compared to $9.8 million profit before tax a year earlier.

Last year, Quivin said that underperformance was discovered in several key areas of the hotel and that if it persisted it was unlikely the Pegasus would be able to meet its financial obligations by March 2012.