MARPIN and FLOW engage

Telecommunications giant FLOW (previously named LIME and Cable and Wireless) is to purchase cash-strapped cable television company MARPIN 2K4.

The SUN can report that the Dominica Social Security (DSS), the majority shareholder of MARPIN, and FLOW are close to signing a deal which will result in FLOW's outright ownership of the cable television company.

According to a source, who spoke to the SUN on the usual conditions of anonymity, the two companies have been dialoguing and sharing emails but the final document has not been signed.

The source said the ball is now in FLOW's court and the DSS is ready to sign the agreement.

"Jeffery Baptiste (FLOW's Dominica manager) is very passionate about the deal; he wants it and he is optimistic that it will soon be closed but his bosses are yet to finalize it all," the source revealed.

When contacted Baptiste told the SUN: "Stay close…I will inform you when I have to."

Anderson Joseph, DSS's chairman refused the SUN's request for comment on the proposed sale.

In January 2015 on state-owned DBS Radio's Talking Point, DSS Managing Director Janice Jean-Jacques Thomas said that the organization was "still on a quest to sell MARPIN 2K4".

"We are looking forward to divest…it is a good investment but there may be persons with the capacity, the ability to do more with MARPIN than we are able to and so we are still looking forward to divesting," she said.

She added that there are a number of persons who have expressed interest in buying MARPIN and "we continue to have discussions."

Meanwhile, MARPIN's employees are anxiously awaiting the end of negotiations to determine the status of their jobs.

But the source said the main issue preventing closure is "the dynamic of the cost for the company" but the dialogue between the parties "have been good and positive".

"There will be light soon at the end of the tunnel," the source said. "People must understand that the investment of DSS was 4.250 million dollars which was an investment opportunity but from what I am aware of is that the investment is not performing and so the board had to take a decision."

DSS is a quasi-government institution.