Podgorica (12 February 2011) – Not only has the company “Cubus Lux” failed to fulfill the criteria for the Valdanos tender, but it shouldn’t have even qualified as a contender in the first place according to its own financial statements.
After we filed criminal charges against Vice President Vujica Lazović in relation to this deal, we were expecting the he would attempt to justify his decision. However, we weren’t expecting him to resort to distortions of the truth, which is the only way of characterizing Lazović’s statements from yesterday.
Cubus Lux’s financial statements are clear on the matter. The company recorded losses for the majority of the period spanning the years 2004 to 2010.
In addition to operating with some 6-million GBP in losses during 2009 and 2010, Cubus Lux also recorded losses of around 1-million GBP in 2004 and 2005. According to Lazović these details weren’t relevant in the tender commission’s final decision. Cubus Lux recorded some 4.9-million GBP in profits in 2007 (before taxes). It’s worth remembering that the Valdanos tourism development requires investments of some 220-million euros for its realization.
The tender conditions also stipulated that the eventual lessee must have demonstrated five years of uninterrupted planning, development and hotel management experience for four plus (or five star) hotels. Cubus Lux’s financial statement from 2008 clearly states that the company had only established in February of that year the “third pillar” of its business operations – “luxurious resorts.” Prior to this, in 2004, Cubus Lux was mainly involved in the casino business, while in 2006 it expanded into nautical marinas. These facts illustrate that there is no way that the company could have fulfilled the five year requirement of the tender.
Another condition was that in order to even participate in the tender, the contenders had to show that they had realized at least 100-million in revenues in the past year. Cubus Lux’s revenues were 3.1-million GBP in the past year and the company has never recorded revenues that were even close to that stipulated by the tender. An additional condition was that the company should prove that the value of the capital it has under management is worth at least 100-million euros. According to information from 2008, the company managed some 49-million euros in assets.
On the basis of the above information, it is unclear how Lazović and members of the tender commission could have accepted Cubus Lux’s offer, nor which information they were looking at when they decided to grant the Valdanos tender to such a company.
We never doubted that the Vice President of the Government of Montenegro would be happy that MANS has taken an interest in his work. However, it seems like the owners of Cubus Lux were even happier than Lazović when they learned that they had won the Valdanos tender even though they failed to fulfill its most basic criteria. Whether or not Lazović had reasons to celebrate with them will be left to the Montenegrin courts to decide.
MANS once again calls on the new President of the Privatization Council Igor Lukšić to cancel the Valdanos tender without any further delay. There is already more than enough information available for raising serious doubts about the tender process and the decision to grant Cubus Lux the project in violation of Montenegrin laws.
