British Virgin Islands

It appears even our most famous part time residents are not immune to what is going on in the world! I have had people left and right passing me bad information after bad information about the trouble the airlines are in. The only problem is, as usual with our North American Media (see not slighting the Americans, I think Canada's media does it too!) we are not sure what is real and what is fear mongering. They can whip up anything so we are all scared to moved.

This was an interesting read on Branson's empire though, and does have some correlation on the BVI where we are at least.

Virgin Drinks is one of more than 300 companies which are ultimately owned by Branson family companies, including Virgin Group Holdings, an entity incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.

Getting a precise measure on Sir Richard's net worth is almost impossible because financial accounts filed with regulators in the British Virgin Islands are not made public. Unfortunately, I do not have a link for where this came from. When I find it I will post it!

More pain for Brand Richard Branson
RICHARD Branson's Virgin empire has come under severe financial pressure as the credit crunch and spiking oil prices wreak havoc in most of his businesses.
The man ranked last year by Forbes magazine as the world's 236th richest person, with a personal fortune estimated at almost $US8 billion, is preparing to absorb a few financial hits as growth slows in his key markets - Britain, the US and Australia.
Chief among Sir Richard's concerns are his airline businesses, including the international carrier Virgin Atlantic and the Australian domestic operator Virgin Blue.
The financial services businesses trading under the Virgin Money moniker are also suffering, particularly in Australia where it is no longer profitable for the business to distribute basic lending products such as mortgages and personal loans.
And in the US, the Virgin prepaid mobile operation which was floated on the New York Stock Exchange last year is in meltdown.
It's a tricky, perhaps ominous time for Sir Richard, whose faltering Australian and global activities demonstrate that his glossy brand is as vulnerable as any other to souring economic conditions.
Sir Richard is alert to the problems.
Last week he conceded that the international airline industry was poised for another shake-out as rising jet fuel costs magnify the vulnerability of low-margin carriers.
While he said he was confident that Virgin Atlantic would weather the cost blowout, he acknowledged that some international carriers would not survive.
"Oil prices will continue to rise due to a combination of global demand and falling reserves," he told London's Telegraph newspaper last month.
"The strong airlines will survive, but one or more major US carriers will go out of business this year."
Singapore Airlines has a 49 per cent stake in Virgin Atlantic, which operates various routes between Britain, the US, Africa and South Asia.
The airline paid Sir Richard $US1.6 billion for the minority stake in 1999, but now wants to sell out because it says the returns are disappointing.
"It's not a secret we regard it as an underperforming investment," Singapore Airlines chief Chew Choon Seng said on May 14.
Virgin Atlantic has suffered a sharp slide in earnings in the past two years as the price of jet kerosene has soared.
The company's profit fell to pound stg. 20.6 million in 2007 from pound stg. 65.6 million in 2006 as the cost explosion cut a swathe through profit margins.
Virgin Atlantic now faces the prospect of running up losses this year, as does the locally listed Virgin Blue.
Confusion surrounds the operating performance of the Australian air carrier after JP Morgan analysts Matthew Crowe and Russell Crichton-Browne warned clients on Thursday that Virgin Blue would not survive if it did not increase fares.
"Equity injections would be futile as prices would not cover costs," the analysts stated in a report.
"Even with $1 billion in equity Virgin Blue would become insolvent in this scenario."
The analysts have since backed away from the analysis included in their Thursday report, but not the bearish revisions to their earnings forecasts.
JP Morgan expects Virgin Blue's net profit to slide almost 60 per cent this year to $82 million and to $19 million in 2009.
Sir Richard also has headaches in the financial services sector, with his high-profile Virgin Money arm in Australia struggling to compete in key lending markets.
In fact, the global liquidity crisis has curtailed Virgin Money Australia (VMA) to the point where it is no longer able to market mortgages and personal loans to local borrowers.
VMA is a joint venture between Sir Richard and Macquarie Group, but the latter has pulled financial support for the embattled business which last year posted a net loss of $3.3 million.
Macquarie's pull-back is part of its wider decision to exit lending activities because of deteriorating credit markets.
The sub-prime crunch came at the worst time for VMA which also had a deficiency of capital and reserves of $5.3 million on March 30 last year.
This means the Australian entity was balance-sheet insolvent and poorly positioned to fund the business expansions that had been signalled by its local chief executive, David Wakeley.
VMA is now at the crossroads and faces a difficult future unless Sir Richard or Macquarie inject more capital into the business.
More than half of VMA's Sydney-based staff were made redundant this week after the company abandoned plans to launch a personal loan product.
The partnership with Macquarie is under review but any move by Sir Richard to buy out its stake may prove very costly.
Macquarie owns only about 10 per cent of VMA but is owed $18 million according to the 2007 accounts.
The Virgin brand is also doing it tough in the US.
Wireless communications provider Virgin Mobile USA, which was listed on Wall Street last year, has copped a hiding from investors amid disappointing results and heavy customer attrition.
The stock was trading above $US16 last October but closed on Thursday at under $US4.
The share price slump has wiped hundreds of millions from the value of Virgin Group's 35 per cent stake in the company.
South Korean mobile phone giant SK Mobile is now negotiating to buy out the business.
Another drain on Sir Richard's net worth is a fizzy drinks operation, Virgin Drinks Group. It posted a net loss of more than pound stg. 7 million last year and had net liabilities of pound stg. 131 million when it last reported in March 2007.
Virgin Drinks is one of more than 300 companies which are ultimately owned by Branson family companies, including Virgin Group Holdings, an entity incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.
Getting a precise measure on Sir Richard's net worth is almost impossible because financial accounts filed with regulators in the British Virgin Islands are not made public.
While Sir Richard looks like taking a big haircut on his net worth in 2008, consumers around the world might take some comfort from the fact that his hyper-active marketing machine will still be running in overdrive.

So, I know a lot of you are going to skip right over the writing above to the pictures here, and that is ok, cuz quite truthfully, I just skimmed it as well. I just thought someone would be interested in reading it!!!

Maybe that means the developers at Beef Island will decide that it is not a good time to go ahead with 5 star resorts! On that note, the has been reporting that they have over 17000 from the BVI and North American and Europe in just a couple short weeks AGAINST the Beef Island Development. Wow! What can I say! The protection of the environment is a pretty hot topic nowadays, and lets face it, with the fuel costs, we may all be going back to fishing to eat and sailing to get from place to place.
You can go to Ocean River Institute for additional information, to make a donation to the cause, or to sign the letter to the Premier. Having Ocean River Institute, which is a registered with all kinds of letters non profit in the USA come to bat has helped out tremendously. The support is just overwhelming, and when you read the comments that have been added to the petition on the Care2 site you realize that many people who are signing the petition HAVE indeed BEEN to the BVI. It will be very interesting to see what happens there.

I am not sure I can put up a blog entry without pictures! So, Lets see what i have. I want to be doing some of the dives the boat is doing this week! It looks spectacular, and as usual when we only have a few day charter, we try and cram a weeks worth of work into 3 or 4 days! Happens all the time.

I received a couple emails passed on a couple weeks ago through the Charter Yacht Society. It was basically the Marina at East End where UBS is and Patouche, or bluewatersports has taken over. They were saying that they had a great deal for several cats on the dock there. Can't remember everything they were offering, but it was all but the kitchen sink for a reasonable price. I remember diesel at $5.00 a gallon, free ice, internet, and on.
I always like to keep an eye out on what is going on (plus they were saying they had 4 hotel rooms at $135.00 double a night including taxes) so I thought we would go take a look, First of all, I emailed back, asking some questions and that we would be out that afternoon. No reply. We did not make it out that afternoon so tried the next day. Really could not get any answers there.
They had advertised fuel on the dock, but since the fuel pump seemed to be in the middle of the dock, I was not sure how that would work,

I kind of looked to see where these 4 cats would go and there was a couple possible places, although some of them would be worse then Red Hook having to back in and tie to the poles...

The only place that looked viable for us was the T head, although pretty open...and we could see surge happening. Then I was concerned about security as well, as this was where tradewinds had been and the scene of a horrific late night robbery a year or so ago.

I went to scout out the hotel, and I did find a little girl who was very nice and could show me the rooms (there is 4, 2 of them were vacated by Tradewinds she told me). The building is about 65 years old, but the rooms were ok. This is what the two looked like that i saw.







The Hotel is basically open 9-5 and then they have a sign and a board that they put your key up on if you are coming in after that for your room. Not sure what I think of that plan. Does not that mean that anyone could take the key, even if the owner of the property is across the road?



Whether the robberies there last year were inside jobs or not, we left there with quite a few questions, which we sent to the original contact for this whole thing, that was 3 weeks ago and they still are not answered, and that was the second email gone unanswered. That usually means we should not even bother.