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CLICO's Duprey spent billions on Florida properties
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By Oscar Ramjeet:
Caribbean Net News Special Correspondent -
Email:oscar@caribbeannetnews.com:

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad: While Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, the Bahamas, and other Caribbean islands are trying to ensure that policy holders, and investors with CL Financial, CLICO, and other subsidiaries are protected, it has been discovered that the CL Financial Chairman, Lawrence Duprey, spent billions of dollars in several high rise properties in Florida.

The Trinidad Guardian reported that Duprey went on a shopping spree in South Florida in the last five years, buying or developing up to a dozen properties and spending an estimated US$1.5 billion - some of which would have come from local pensioners, who were lured by promises of high returns from his insurance companies.

The newspaper reported that the jewel in Duprey's Florida crown is a company called DYL Development Group, which in 2005 announced more than US$1 billion in new development in South Florida.

Among the projects undertaken by the DYL group are a 50-storey condominium project called Infinity at Brickell, which has 459 residences and is located on Brickell Avenue, one of the most expensive streets in Miami; a 69-storey office office/condominium complex with 550 residences called Infinity II on Brickell Avenue; twin 23-storey towers comprising 345 hotel rooms and 171 condominium residences for a hotel in Fort Lauderdale; and a 50 unit luxury high-rise oceanfront condominium complex in Fort Lauderdale, where the prices ranged from US$900,000 to more than US$2 million.

Other properties snapped up by Duprey included 121,533 square feet of motel buildings in Fort Lauderdale. This property was bought by a company, Capri Resorts LLC for US$35 million in 2005. The property was sold to a company called Sable Resorts, which was related to the buyer, according to reports seen by the Guardian.

The investment appeared in the CL Financial annual report in 2004 as an associated company, with CL Financial holding a 26.88 percent interest. The investment does not appear in the CL Financial annual reports after 2005 and there is no mention of it being sold.

The Guardian report stated that, through a company called Dalco Properties, Duprey purchased a 1.98 acre parcel of land in Broward County in 2008 at US$92.87 per square foot. Duprey and Winston Fifi were the officers of the company in 2000, while Duprey, his wife Sylvia Baldini and Andrew Gross were listed as the officers of the company in 2008.

Also in 2008, the CL Financial group spent US$300 million buying 6,000 acres of land that is described as "rural" in Osceola County in Florida.

Duprey is the Chairman of the DYL group, whose website describes the British American Insurance Company as its "capital partner". The founding member and principal of DYL is Geoffrey Leid, who was listed as the Corporate Secretary of CLICO in the CL Financial-owned insurance company's 2007 annual report.

In 2004, another Duprey company called Colonial Development received a loan of US$45.6 million from Chicago-based Corus Bank for the Europa By-The-Sea project. In 2006, the same bank lent an affiliate of DYL Development Group US$140 million on the Infinity at Brickwell property in 2005.

Florida court records indicate that the mortgage was amended eight times between 2005 and December 2007, when the loan's maturity was extended, with US$6 million outstanding, DYL is required to pay US$2 million up front, plus a US$100,000 extension fee and US$1 million each quarter, with the total due on Sunday.

The Central Bank applied for and received an injunction last Sunday requiring that it must give its prior approval before CL Financial sells, assigns or disposes of any CLICO assets. Neither British American Insurance nor any of the Florida assets in which CL Financial may have a capital interest is included in the injunction.

February 28, 2009

caribbeannetnews.com

February 28, 2009 | 12:42 PM Comments  0 comments

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