A defining moment for regional private sector

THE Caricom Private Sector Organisation (CPSO) has congratulated the Sandals Resorts and Beaches Resorts team, led by Executive Chairman Adam Stewart, on the announcement of a landmark partnership with Royal Caribbean Group under which the global vacation company will make a 50 per cent investment in the all-inclusive resort enterprise, valued at approximately US$3 billion and which is expected to be finished in early 2027, subject to customary approvals. According to the CPSO, this transaction, which implies a valuation of some US$6 billion for a company conceived, built and headquartered in the Caribbean, is a defining moment for the regional private sector. In a media release on Thursday, the CPSO said the deal affirms what it has long maintained: Caricom enterprise, when permitted to scale across the single market and economy, can command a place among the foremost names in global business.

“The late Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, OJ, founded Sandals on the conviction that a Caribbean company, a Caribbean brand, could stand on the world stage. This partnership is the emphatic vindication of that conviction, and a tribute to the stewardship of Adam Stewart and his team,” said the CPSO. “For tourism, the region’s largest export sector and principal earner of foreign exchange, the partnership brings together two category-defining leaders — Sandals and Beaches Resorts, the Caribbean’s leading, all-inclusive resort brands, and Royal Caribbean Group, with its global vacation platform,” the private sector body argued.

The CPSO said it anticipates that the combined reach of the two companies will expand visitor arrivals, lengthen stays, deepen airlift and cruise connectivity, and multiply demand across Caricom destinations, including Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Lucia, The Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. “For Caricom and the CSME (Caribbean Single Market and Economy) the significance extends well beyond tourism. The partnership demonstrates the CSME working as intended — a regional firm using the single market as its platform for growth, attracting world-scale capital on world-scale terms.

“It is a powerful signal to international investors of the bankability of Caribbean assets, Caribbean management, and Caribbean brands,” added the CPSO in the media release. The CPSO added that it also sees in this development a renewed oppor…