American investor Toby Bailey has targeted Jamaica for US$50 million or over $7.5 billion in investments over the next few months through a newly created entity, Borg Global Holdings Jamaica, in projects ranging from the tourism sector, to mining, media, and even the Jamaica Jazz and Blues festival.

Bailey, who is the chairman and managing trustee of Borg International, a company which has operations in banking, mining, and media, outlined his plans in an interview with the Jamaica Observer earlier this week.

“We’re looking right now at some boutique hotels. We are looking at some lots and even looking at some properties that could be developed into a convention centre, and even what we call a vault. In the United States we have an asset vault where we store gold, diamonds; assets that we use to leverage with our financial partners to trade and to create new money,” he said, explaining how he intends to fund the projects.

He said he’s now “looking at probably between five and six boutique hotels or maybe one medium-sized hotel and a few boutiques” in Negril, Montego Bay and Portland. Among his targets is the Christopher Issa-owned S Hotel in Montego Bay, St James. He declared that he’s also seeking lots, from 30 acres up to 1,000 acres in size, to develop through joint ventures with other investors. The aim is to build hotels, distribution centres or residential properties on those lots.

Funding for the planned projects which he said will begin immediately, “as we already have a team in Jamaica”, is expected to be unconventional. Bailey said that, instead of taking loans, he will use the hotel properties to “lure South American, European and African investors [to Jamaica] to learn how to utilise their assets, their gold, their diamonds, their gemstones, to create new money. For that we want convention hotels, so we have a boutique, then we will convert part of it, maybe buy a piece of land next to it and build a convention meeting centre. That way they can stay there, and if not in a big hotel, they can stay in the cluster of hotels that we will have to create new business.” Bailey, who is also an educator in investment banking, will teach courses on unconventional investing.

The proposed plans come even as an online search shows a complaint brought by an unnamed person making serious fraud claims against Borg Investment in a transaction done in 2019. The issue was raised with Bailey who dismissed it as a “complaint from a broker” that didn’t go too far. He outlined that the company does transactions with stand-by letters of credit, adding that “when people do deals and say they can provide instruments for me to monetise, if I find out that they are not the right people, I shut the deal down”. He said the actual buyer who the broker was representing did not complain, but the broker did because he lost his commission which could have been about US$10 million.

Despite that, Bailey said he remains undaunted about his prospects for the island. He said Jamaica was chosen because he sees the country as the sixth region of Africa. His company, Borg International, through subsidiaries, mines gold and diamonds in Africa and Guyana. Those assets, he said, are stored in vaults in the US and could also be stored in a vault in Jamaica if suitable land is found to build a bunker. These assets, he said, will be verified and a safe-keeping receipt (SKR) issued, which can then be used as collateral to raise funds for projects.

“Banks can leverage up to 10 times the value of assets so they will lend someone like me three to four times the value of it. That’s the way it is done with the big boys, now we’re bringing that same mentality to allow our brothers, our Caribbean brothers, our African brothers, to now use their assets to leverage to their own funding without having loans,” he continued. Bailey name-checked Scotiabank as being Borg’s banker, but did not elaborate.

Bailey’s immediate project is sponsorship of the Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival. He told the Business Observer that he will be arriving in Jamaica next week for a press briefing to announce the sponsorship. Borg International, through its Borg Media Group subsidiary, will sponsor the event to the tune of US$1 million. He said the festival will be used as a promotional event for his entities and products and to get investors’ interest in new projects in Jamaica and Africa. He said the festival will only be attended by people who can prove that they are fully vaccinated and the Government will be helping in that regard.

The format of the festival, which is planned for next February, is yet to be worked out, given the resurgence of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Bailey said it could however be a hybrid event, virtual and live, with the target of getting between 7,000 to 15,000 patrons. The plan is also to move from being a sponsor of the event to being a partner to share in the proceeds.

He outlined that the media group will also be looking to acquire a studio in Jamaica for music production or media production before adding that he could bring the Borg-owned Sunset Pictures, a Hollywood-based motion picture production entity, to Jamaica.

Also in the works is Borg’s internet protocol TV offerings, which he said offers thousands of channels in various languages.