PM Announces Potential Stake Bank Sale to MSC

M.S.C., or Mediterranean Shipping Company, is one of the biggest names in the cruise and shipping world. Now, they’re eyeing a piece of the Belizean cruise market and have shown interest in buying the Stake Bank Cruise terminal. Prime Minister John Briceño spilled the beans on Monday morning during his appearance on the Open Your Eyes morning show. He explained that the Government of Belize had to step in and acquire Stake Bank because MSC didn’t want to get involved while there’s a dispute between Mike Feinstein and financier OPSA. Today, the Federation of Cruise Tourism Association of Belize (FECTAB) held a press conference to voice their objections to MSC’s interest in Stake Bank. We’ll dive into that press conference in a bit, but first, let’s revisit PM Briceño’s comments from earlier this week, where he called the government honest brokers.

 

Prime Minister John Briceno (File: Oct 7^th, 2024)

“Here’s a dispute over a project that successive governments have said is in the national interest of Belize. We got involved as honest brokers, trying to find a compromise between the two groups. But what – well, they, they can’t come to an agreement. I don’t want to prejudice or give my – how I feel about it, but they can’t come to a compromise. So know, here comes the investors that really have the money and they’re the ones that put up the money, most of the money, come to us, “Well we can’t come to an agreement.” Now we have MSC, one of the largest cruise lines. And also they do containers. They move containers – the largest company to move containers around the world. They have over two hundred thousand people working. They’re saying, “Well, now, we’d be interested, but we don’t want to get into this mess. The only way we’d be interested is if this mess is settled, and we buy over then.” So that the only way we can do that is by compulsorily acquiring land. Albino and two other top people from MSC and said they’re excited. They came for the first time to Belize. And they flew by helicopter and look at the Blue Hole, the reef, the country. They’re excited. And there he says, “you guys are one of the most beautiful countries. We want in.” We spoke to them about the Port of Belize and they say, “well, we’re prepared to do this and also consider investing in the container portion of the port. So, exciting things are coming but we need to get things done. We need to solve these problems to be able to go to the next point.”