Hilton says ‘business as usual’ as Govt moves to sell hotel

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

Hilton has con­firmed that it con­tin­ues to man­age the State-owned Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre un­der a new­ly signed agree­ment, say­ing it is “busi­ness as usu­al” at the ho­tel.

In an ex­clu­sive email re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk, a Hilton Trinidad & Con­fer­ence Cen­tre spokesper­son said:

“It is busi­ness as usu­al for Hilton Trinidad & Con­fer­ence Cen­tre. Hilton con­tin­ues to man­age the prop­er­ty un­der the terms of the re­cent­ly signed man­age­ment agree­ment. Any fur­ther ques­tions about the sale should be di­rect­ed to own­er­ship.”

The re­sponse fol­lows the Gov­ern­ment’s an­nounce­ment that it in­tends to sell the ho­tel. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced plans to sell Hilton Trinidad on Tues­day, Oc­to­ber 13, dur­ing the sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny for a new Mar­riott-brand­ed re­sort at Rocky Point, Mt Irvine, To­ba­go.

She said the busi­ness of gov­ern­ment was not to run ho­tels. She said the Gov­ern­ment would soon in­vite ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est from po­ten­tial buy­ers.

How­ev­er, prop­er­ty an­a­lyst Afra Ray­mond has raised ques­tions about what the State bought when eTecK ac­quired the shares of Hilton In­ter­na­tion­al Trinidad Lim­it­ed in Sep­tem­ber and why the price has not been made pub­lic. He be­lieves the tem­po­rary man­age­ment agree­ment was reached to keep the ho­tel op­er­at­ing while the State con­sid­ers its next move.

Ray­mond called for an ex­pla­na­tion of the ac­qui­si­tion.

“Ab­solute­ly! We were told that eTecK bought all the shares in Hilton In­ter­na­tion­al Trinidad Lim­it­ed and there are three ques­tions aris­ing from that re­port:”

“Giv­en that the State al­ready owned that land, the build­ings and all the fix­tures & fit­tings, ex­act­ly what was it that we paid for?”

“What price did we pay for those as­sets?”

“Why is the re­spon­si­ble Min­is­ter, Sad­dam Ho­sein, be­ing so am­bigu­ous about this trans­ac­tion? On the one hand, it was loud­ly pro­claimed as Trinidad Hilton hav­ing been res­cued etc etc, yet on the oth­er hand the Min­is­ter re­port­ed­ly 'de­clined to dis­close the dol­lar fig­ures'”

On Sep­tem­ber 4, eTecK an­nounced it had ac­quired all the shares of Hilton In­ter­na­tion­al Trinidad Lim­it­ed. It re­named the com­pa­ny HotelTT As­set Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, its whol­ly owned sub­sidiary.

The Gov­ern­ment al­so signed a Deed of Sur­ren­der to end the pre­vi­ous lease. Hilton re­mained as man­ag­er un­der a sep­a­rate Ho­tel Man­age­ment Agree­ment. Nei­ther the amount paid for the shares nor the fees payable to Hilton un­der the new con­tract was dis­closed in the an­nounce­ment.

The man­age­ment agree­ment runs for six months, with a pos­si­ble six-month ex­ten­sion. Hilton han­dles dai­ly op­er­a­tions. The State re­tains own­er­ship.

Ray­mond be­lieves the lim­it­ed du­ra­tion in­di­cates the par­ties could not set­tle a longer arrange­ment. He de­scribed it as tem­po­rary rather than a com­mit­ment from Hilton to op­er­ate the ho­tel in­def­i­nite­ly.

“Ev­i­dent­ly the re­cent ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween eTecK and Hilton In­ter­na­tion­al were on­ly able to de­liv­er this short-term tran­si­tion­al arrange­ment, in which Trinidad Hilton is to re­main open for a min­i­mum of 6 and a max­i­mum of 12 months. If Hilton In­ter­na­tion­al were go­ing to stay longer there would have been no hes­i­ta­tion in an­nounc­ing that, that is my sense of this tem­po­rary arrange­ment.”

The fur­ther six months re­main sub­ject to agree­ment.

“The im­per­a­tive was clear­ly to avoid clos­ing the Ho­tel, both for rea­sons of pre­serv­ing em­ploy­ment and keep­ing the in­ter­est of prospec­tive pur­chasers.”

Asked whether the tem­po­rary con­tract might af­fect the price or re­strict a new own­er’s plans for the site, he said:

“No, I don't think that the tran­si­tion­al agree­ment will have any sig­nif­i­cant ef­fect on the like­ly sale price or use of that prop­er­ty.”

Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk first re­port­ed on March 22 that Hilton was con­sid­er­ing with­draw­ing its brand from the St Ann’s prop­er­ty. That in­ves­ti­ga­tion ex­am­ined the old lease, reg­is­tered doc­u­ments, pub­lic spend­ing, pro­cure­ment records and the need for ma­jor re­pairs to keep the ho­tel at in­ter­na­tion­al brand stan­dards.

The 20-year arrange­ment ex­pired in 2023. Short ex­ten­sions fol­lowed while talks con­tin­ued. Hilton had not an­nounced a fi­nal with­draw­al.

On April 26, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that Hilton World­wide had grant­ed a three-month ex­ten­sion, ef­fec­tive April 16. Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Olivi­er Mau­maire con­firmed the ex­ten­sion in an in­ter­nal memo to ho­tel ex­ec­u­tives. Dis­cus­sions with the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ued.

The po­si­tion be­came clear­er in Au­gust. In a di­rect re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia through its Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca com­mu­ni­ca­tions team, Hilton said it was try­ing to se­cure a long-term so­lu­tion. It al­so con­firmed that the lease could end on Sep­tem­ber 18 if no agree­ment was reached.

“Since 1962, Hilton Trinidad & Con­fer­ence Cen­tre has been a proud mem­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty, serv­ing as a home to gen­er­a­tions of team mem­bers and guests. In an ef­fort to con­tin­ue that lega­cy, Hilton re­mains ac­tive­ly en­gaged in dis­cus­sions with the prop­er­ty’s own­er­ship in hopes of se­cur­ing a long-term so­lu­tion for the ho­tel. How­ev­er, should no agree­ment be reached, the ho­tel’s lease is ex­pect­ed to ter­mi­nate on Sep­tem­ber 18, 2026.”

The new agree­ment was an­nounced on Sep­tem­ber 4, ahead of that dead­line.

Events drawn from Guardian Me­dia’s pub­lished re­ports, the Sep­tem­ber re­struc­tur­ing an­nounce­ment and par­lia­men­tary state­ments.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced the pro­posed di­vest­ment on Oc­to­ber 13 dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny for a new Mar­riott-brand­ed de­vel­op­ment at Rocky Point in To­ba­go. The an­nounce­ment came about six weeks af­ter the State’s new Hilton agree­ment.

She said the Gov­ern­ment would in­vite ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est and pur­sue a di­vest­ment process for Hilton. Re­fer­ring to the State’s in­volve­ment in ho­tel op­er­a­tions, she said:

“Why is a gov­ern­ment run­ning a ho­tel? And that is why we will put out ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est, RF­Ps, short­ly to di­vest the Mag­dale­na Ho­tel from the gov­ern­ment. We al­so in­tend to do a di­vest­ment process for the Hilton ho­tel.”

No sell­ing price or buy­er has been dis­closed. The Gov­ern­ment has not said whether it would sell the ho­tel, shares in the new com­pa­ny or an­oth­er in­ter­est. Nor has it stat­ed whether a buy­er must re­tain Hilton as man­ag­er.

eTecK’s lat­est au­dit­ed con­sol­i­dat­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments that are pub­licly avail­able cov­er the year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023. They were laid in Par­lia­ment in April 2026. The ac­counts placed the car­ry­ing val­ue of the Hilton prop­er­ty at $274 mil­lion in 2023, com­pared with $259 mil­lion in 2022.

The ac­counts al­so record­ed in­come from Trinidad Hilton of $9.317 mil­lion in 2023, com­pared with $12.269 mil­lion the year be­fore. The year-on-year fall was $2.952 mil­lion. These amounts were in­come record­ed by eTecK un­der the for­mer arrange­ment. They are not Hilton Trinidad’s to­tal ho­tel rev­enue or net prof­it.

eTecK record­ed a $205.1 mil­lion com­pre­hen­sive loss across the group in 2023, large­ly due to low­er in­vest­ment-prop­er­ty val­u­a­tions. That was not Hilton Trinidad’s re­port­ed re­sult. The ho­tel’s $274 mil­lion car­ry­ing val­ue is not a cur­rent sale val­u­a­tion.

More re­cent me­dia re­ports said the ho­tel made a prof­it in six of the ten years be­tween 2016 and 2025. The ho­tel re­port­ed­ly re­turned to prof­it in 2023 and 2024 be­fore record­ing a $1.6 mil­lion loss in 2025. Those re­ports con­cern the ho­tel’s trad­ing re­sults, which are dif­fer­ent from the in­come eTecK re­port­ed un­der the for­mer lease.

Hilton World­wide’s an­nu­al re­port filed with the Unit­ed States Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion in Feb­ru­ary 2026 lists Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre among 42 ho­tels leased by the in­ter­na­tion­al group at De­cem­ber 31, 2025. It iden­ti­fies the St Ann’s ho­tel as a 405-room prop­er­ty.

The SEC fil­ing pre­dates Sep­tem­ber’s man­age­ment agree­ment. It dis­closed no sep­a­rate Trinidad rev­enue, prof­it or val­u­a­tion.

Ray­mond said the State should se­cure an in­de­pen­dent val­u­a­tion be­fore invit­ing or as­sess­ing of­fers. He said the fig­ure would pro­vide a start­ing point rather than fix what a buy­er would ul­ti­mate­ly pay.

“It is very im­por­tant to ob­tain an In­de­pen­dent Val­u­a­tion of the Trinidad Hilton so that the sale process could have a prop­er bench­mark to work with. That said, the ac­tu­al mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy and ne­go­ti­a­tions with prospec­tive pur­chasers will ul­ti­mate­ly pro­duce the se­ri­ous of­fers, which may in fact sig­nif­i­cant­ly dif­fer from the orig­i­nal val­u­a­tion.”

He said the spend­ing his­to­ry alone would not de­ter­mine the ho­tel’s val­ue. Its earn­ings, debts and cash flow would al­so be ex­am­ined by buy­ers.

“A Ho­tel is a 'trad­ing prop­er­ty' so val­uers and prospec­tive pur­chasers will be more fo­cused on its ac­tu­al trad­ing pro­file as dis­closed in its cash­flows, prof­its/loss­es and in­debt­ed­ness. The monies spent on re­pairs and ren­o­va­tions, even if those sums are sig­nif­i­cant, would on­ly be a part of the pic­ture be­ing con­sid­ered.”

Dur­ing the bud­get de­bate on Oc­to­ber 19, Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein said Hilton Trinidad need­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly $400 mil­lion in cap­i­tal in­vest­ment. He al­so de­scribed the ho­tel as a bet­ter-per­form­ing State as­set and said the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion knew the ex­tent of the pro­posed work.

“So while Hilton is ac­tu­al­ly one of those bet­ter-per­form­ing in­dus­tries, Mr Speak­er, the in­vest­ment or the cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture that we have to put in­to there is about $400 mil­lion. About $400 mil­lion.”

Ho­sein re­ferred to a Cab­i­net Minute dat­ed Jan­u­ary 11, 2023, and ques­tioned why the pro­posed works had not been car­ried out. The $400 mil­lion is a stat­ed cap­i­tal re­quire­ment. It is not an amount shown as hav­ing been spent, nor does it es­tab­lish the present mar­ket val­ue of the ho­tel.

Bud­get records show that $47.11 mil­lion was spent un­der the Hilton Prop­er­ty Im­prove­ment Plan in fis­cal 2024. For 2025, the pro­gramme had an orig­i­nal al­lo­ca­tion of $163.6 mil­lion, which was lat­er re­vised to $3.6 mil­lion. The 2026 in­vest­ment pro­gramme re­port­ed the $3.6 mil­lion as dis­bursed for land­slip restora­tion, roof re­pairs, struc­tur­al re­pairs and re­lat­ed civ­il works.

The project re­ceived an orig­i­nal al­lo­ca­tion of $10 mil­lion for fis­cal 2026. In the 2027 Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme, no sep­a­rate al­lo­ca­tion for Hilton Trinidad’s im­prove­ment project has been iden­ti­fied. That does not rule out spend­ing by eTecK through its own ac­counts or an­oth­er ap­proved fi­nanc­ing arrange­ment.

The 2027 fi­nan­cial year be­gan on Oc­to­ber 1. No full ac­count of com­plet­ed ren­o­va­tions or out­stand­ing work has been pub­lished.

An Au­di­tor Gen­er­al find­ing con­cern­ing the 2024 im­prove­ment-plan pay­ments al­so stat­ed that the lease agree­ment be­tween eTecK and Hilton In­ter­na­tion­al was not pro­duced for au­dit ex­am­i­na­tion. Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that find­ing in Au­gust. The re­port did not say whether the lease was sub­se­quent­ly sup­plied for ex­am­i­na­tion.

The spend­ing his­to­ry reach­es fur­ther back. At a par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee hear­ing in 2016, eTecK said $508 mil­lion had been spent on an ear­li­er Hilton re­fur­bish­ment project by April of that year. The es­ti­mat­ed project cost had in­creased from $484 mil­lion to $634 mil­lion. These old­er re­fur­bish­ment fig­ures cov­er a dif­fer­ent pe­ri­od and can­not be added to lat­er bud­get al­lo­ca­tions as though all were new spend­ing.

Asked whether the State should now un­der­take the full $400 mil­lion in cap­i­tal works be­fore sell­ing, Ray­mond op­posed fur­ther ma­jor ex­pen­di­ture. He said the Gov­ern­ment should spend on­ly what is nec­es­sary to main­tain the prop­er­ty while the sale process pro­ceeds.

“Ab­solute­ly not, hav­ing made the de­ci­sion to sell, any cap­i­tal spent from here for­ward ought to be strict­ly lim­it­ed to keep­ing the prop­er­ty 'wind and wa­ter tight' and keep­ing any es­sen­tial plant & fa­cil­i­ties op­er­a­tional.”

Ray­mond has re­peat­ed­ly sought the ho­tel’s fi­nan­cial state­ments over the years. Asked whether tax­pay­ers re­ceived val­ue for the mon­ey spent on Hilton, he replied:

“Not at all, which is why suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have re­fused my many re­quests to dis­close those Fi­nan­cial State­ments .”

He said the fig­ures be­ing used by the Gov­ern­ment to sup­port the sale should now be made avail­able. That would in­clude the fi­nan­cial state­ments and analy­ses con­cern­ing the ho­tel’s per­for­mance, rather than on­ly state­ments about the cost of pro­posed re­pairs.

“We have all heard a lot about the se­cre­cy and al­leged mis­man­age­ment of the pre­vi­ous PNM gov­ern­ment, so the Fi­nan­cial State­ments and Analy­ses now be­ing in­voked to jus­ti­fy this de­ci­sion to sell the 'Trinidad Hilton' prop­er­ty need to be dis­closed with­out any fur­ther de­lay.”

The ho­tel opened in 1962 and has op­er­at­ed un­der the Hilton brand for more than six decades. Ray­mond said com­pe­ti­tion changed when Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad opened in Port-of-Spain in 2008. He sup­ports the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to dis­pose of the ho­tel.

“The open­ing of Hy­att Re­gency in Jan­u­ary 2008 dis­lodged Trinidad Hilton from its rel­a­tive pin­na­cle in terms of be­ing the best Ho­tel in POS, and it nev­er re­cov­ered from that mis­be­got­ten State in­vest­ment. So, yes, it's time to face the facts and dis­pose of that as­set.”

He con­tin­ued to call for dis­clo­sure of the share price, fi­nan­cial records and an in­de­pen­dent val­u­a­tion.