ST JOHN’S, Antigua (CMC) — The Antigua and Barbuda Government says it will use a significant portion of the revenue received for the sale of the multimillion-dollar luxury yacht, Alfa Nero, last weekend to pay towards the country’s external debt.

A former senior Google executive last Friday became the new owner of the 276 feet yacht, that had been auctioned here, following a failed court attempt to block the sale.

Port Authority Manager Darwin Telemacque, who spoke to reporters following the sale of the yacht, said Eric Schmidt, who gave a New York address and had been the chief executive officer of Google from 2001-11, emerged as the highest bidder for the vessel that had been moored in Falmouth Harbour since March 2022 on the southern coast of the island.

Schmidt paid US$67.6 million, beating out two other bidders.

“We are grateful for where it ended up. It is above the forced sale price, which is something we hoped would have really happened and we are grateful,” said Telemacque, adding that the new buyer has seven days to finalise the deal.

International media had said the yacht had been valued at US$81 million and is owned by the sanctioned Russian oligarch Andrey Guryev following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. Guryev, who was subjected to United Kingdom Government sanctions in April 2022, has denied being the owner.

Prime Minister Gaston Browne, speaking on his radio station programme here, said that the funds would be paid into the Consolidated Fund “and I know a lot of creditors saying it is a lot of money but we have already made a determination that at least two-thirds of it will be utilised to pay down on existing external debts”.

“We will have to determine how we deal with those liabilities but certainly the local ones will be paid in full,” Browne told radio listeners, adding that the staff of the vessel, including the captain will be paid in full.

“But the balance of it, at least two-thirds will be utilised to reduce our national debt. We intend to reduce the national debt by about EC$100 million,” Browne said without disclosing the full extent of the national debt.

“Again we are not going to be awash with money as some may think,” Browne said, dismissing a suggestion by his political opponents that the funds should be used to pay outstanding pensions.

“The only pensions that I know that we owe are Social Security pensioners, those who qualified within the last 18 months but Social Security may have been slow in settling the amount due to these pensioners,” Browne added.

During the programme, Browne acknowledged that there were other bids prior to the final round of bidding that “there were bids that were higher but not significantly higher.

“Having done the due diligence, but I would not tell you the reasons or state the names, but there were a few bidders we had to disqualify …we did due diligence on all of them [and] when we had the final bids they had to be sealed bids sent to the Treasury Department and only three, we anticipated a fourth …and I don’t think their offer would have been superior to the US$67.7 million,” Browne added.