New court filings reveal more insight on parent company’s dealings.
Dolphin Cove Limited’s real estate is likely to go on sale in short order to raise revenue for the Dolphin Discovery Group, which is currently in the process of Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in Delaware, USA.
We can reveal that in recent court filings for Leisure Investments Holdings LLC (LIH), the main holding company for the Dolphin Discovery Group, Steven Robert Strom, the sole administrator/authorized person for Leisure Investments and the other subsidiaries, has requested that the court permit him to retain Greenhill & Co., LLC and Keen-Summit Capital Partners LLC. These two entities will provide investment banking and real estate broker/advisory services, respectively.
As LIH’s financial condition and the financial circumstances of its subsidiary, Dolphin Discovery Group, are currently under review by Greenhill, it has been tasked with evaluating ways for the subsidiary to escape the bankruptcy it has filed. It has also been tasked with helping LIH find potential buyers and/or investors for the company’s real estate assets. Among the most notable of these real estate assets is the Dolphin Cove property in the Caribbean.
In addition to the Dolphin Cove property, Leisure Investments’ real estate portfolio includes the following properties to be marketed: the jointly marketed Marineland in St. Augustine, Florida; Gulf World in Panama City, Florida; Zoomarine, Aquafelix, and Acquajoss in Italy. The latter three properties should be marketed on a going concern basis.
The third schedule of the US and foreign jointly marketed properties listed one property in the USA and 10 properties outside of the USA. In addition to the one property listed in the USA, four properties in Mexico, four properties in Jamaica, one property in the Cayman Islands, and one property in the Dominican Republic were also listed as foreign jointly marketed properties. In Jamaica alone, the Dolphin Cove locations in Montego Bay, Ocho Rios, and Puerto Seco along with the Yaaman Adventure Park in Ocho Rios were all included as jointly marketed properties.
In the engagement letter, the properties to be sold were not fully explained, but it is plausible that the real estate sales would be carried out with third-party buyers, and then leased back to the operating subsidiaries. In eight countries around three continents, the Dolphin Discovery Group has 30 attractions.
I am curious about the land and buildings value of Dolphin Cove. I read that it held US$8.76 million, which is equal to J$1.36 billion. Is this value reflected in the rest of the company’s value of US$21.55 million, which is equal to $3.34 billion? If so, how do you calculate this, considering there is more than one company involved? I also read that Dolphin Cove itself was owed US$1.87 million by its related companies and US$848,648 by its parent company World of Dolphins Inc. It is also owed a US$1.11 million advance by Dolphin Discovery Inc. Are these companies the same companies I described above?
Dolphin Cove is 79.99 per cent controlled by World of Dolphins. It sounds like World of Dolphins has a lot of control over Dolphin Cove. The court filing noted that the outstanding funded debt obligations for Leisure Investments subsidiaries exceed US$200 million. In addition, these debt obligations were stated to have been in default since September 2023 and January 2024, so things aren’t looking good for Dolphin Cove.
The debtholders exercised their collateral rights on March 18 to remove all existing members of Leisure Investments and Controladora Dolphin’s board of directors. Steven Strom was appointed as the sole independent director of both boards. Strom was then appointed the sole independent director of the Mexican and USA entities boards on March 28 with Leisure Investments and its subsidiaries filing for a joint chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in Delaware before Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein. This information is important because it shows that Leisure Investments and its subsidiaries are in trouble, and that the debtholders are taking control to protect their investment. This also may cause the Dolphin Discovery Group to look for a buyer and/or investors for its real estate assets.
