JAMES PACKER AND ROBERT DE NIRO ANNOUNCE US$500M NOBU RESORT FOR BARBUDA

Barbuda is set for another high-end tourism investment being billed as the “best resort in the Caribbean.” Billionaire investor James Packer has enthusiastically announced that “Barbuda is go” as he announces plans to build something “beautiful” on the sister isle together with business partner Robert De Niro. Packer has told Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald he will embark on a US$500 million investment that will be a Nobu Resort. The Herald says this is the same name as De Niro’s high-end global restaurant chain in which Packer invested US$100 million. The Nobu Resort is an evolution of the Paradise Found project which the two had conceptualized after leasing the property which had been home to the dilapidated K Club. Packer is confident both he and De Niro would “do well financially” from the veritable Paradise Found 2.0, but “more importantly…build something special.” The Herald reports the project is finally on the starting blocks and about to get under way. Two-time Academy-award winner De Niro told the Herald, “it’s an honour to work with (Packer) and be his partner.” Packer called De Niro a “living legend.”

A buoyant Packer spoke to the Australian newspaper from his superyacht IJE in a definitive statement of intent that he is reprising his formidable reputation as a marquee investor together with one of his most famous friends, De Niro. The Australian newspaper says Packer is now flush with a $3.3 billion windfall from the sale of his Crown Resorts stake.

The seminal announcement about the Nobu Resort comes weeks after Antigua and Barbuda’s final appellate court, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council delivered a landmark ruling in favour of the Government. The JCPC dismissed an appeal by two Barbudans, Trevor Walker and McKenzie Frank, challenging the constitutionality of the Paradise Found Act of 2015. The Court upheld an earlier ruling of the Court of Appeal in relation to the often fraught issue of land use on the sister isle.