good evening and welcome to the business day I'm Andrew lately
sandals resorts executive chairman Adam Stewart looks to life beyond covid19 outlining plans he
has to move the group forward. Mr. Stewart was speaking with our reporter Dashan Hendricks
his first since taking over control of the group since his father's death he is now the man in
charge of the Sandal's empire i mean i know what i need to do i have been prepared for this moment
for many many many many years and though he will have his own way of doing things Adam
Stewart the newly appointed executive chairman of Sandal's resorts taking over at a difficult time
says much of what he has been and will be doing has been influenced by his father the
late godmot stewart who passed on January 4. i choose to to see the glass half full
i know his mission i know what he represented and what he would have wanted us to do right now
and so much of the plans that we are moving forward with are plans that he was centered with
us that he right up to you know the day before his passing he said the plans in place give him enough
to do for at least the next five years before creating new ones and the thoughts about divesting
the resorts have been shelved now his focus is on getting sanders resorts through the kobit
19 pandemic which has decimated the hospitality sector worldwide we're in a complicated period
but i believe that the worst is behind us mr stewart said with a kobit 19 vaccine now available
he is confident things will start returning to normal after business was closed for part of
last year and is now slowly reopening but the real recovery will come on the back side of
this year for tourism and 2022 is going to be a very strong year we still don't have all of
our hotels open across the caribbean so we have a few hotels a handful of hotels today that between
today and the next 60 days from now we should as a company have all of our resorts operating again
all things being equal that can change in a moment's notice if something changes in
the world that's out of my control out of the control of our of the travel industry
occupancy we were told continues to be promising though no figures were offered
but even though reopening all properties by the end of march remains a target mr stewart has
eyes on expansion most of which were signed off by his lead further although we haven't
formally announced a couple of the acquisitions in jamaica it is fairly common knowledge that we
acquired two new hotels in jamaica to our group we announced uh curacao first time leaving the
british caribbean going into the into the dutch caribbean we had announced um saint vincent
our first beaches resort in the eastern caribbean we have expansion plans in jamaica from beaches
and grill to sandals uh royal caribbean to sandals the grill we have new developments in the country
of jamaica that we haven't spoken about we have lands in san lucia for our beaches there are no
words on the valley of the investments but mr stewart said for jamaica the company will create
three thousand new jobs over the next five years which includes converting the jewels
properties that they acquired into a sanders and the beach resorts while expanding other properties
dashing hendricks tvj news the jamaica public service company jps has expressed shock at the
office of utilities regulation our's news release issued earlier today now the release indicated
that jps owes customers 75.2 million dollars in payments for guaranteed standard breed breaches
now in a statement to the media jps says it is awaiting the response of the ministry of energy
on its application for the invocation of the forced major clause in the license that governs
its operations jps says despite its best efforts the usual quality of service to customers has been
impacted since the outbreak of kovit 19 on the island the light and power company also admitted
that this kind of service is anticipated to continue for the duration of the kovit 19 pandemic
however jps noted that there are 17 guaranteed standards for the electricity sector and it is
over 95 compliant overall the company says it takes pride in upholding its obligation to make
breach payments especially in light of the fact that they are automatically paid to customers
the currency trading now it ended today with the us dollar selling for 147.88 cents
the canadian dollar is selling for 116.88
the pound sterling sells for 203.72 cents while the euro is going for 181.73
the jse index gained 732 points today while the junior market index lost
19 points among the winners were blue power group consolidated bakeries i create sagittar group and
appley 8.75 on the losing side where portland jsx lumber depot 138 student living cygnus
credit investments and salata foods and that's the business day i'm andrew lately good evening