Bid To Buy Barclay's Sark Estate

A cash bid is to be made to buy up all of the Barclay's property on Sark, including five hotels.

The Sark Property Company, which is headed by the seignuer, Christopher Beaumont, and entrepreneur Swen Lorenz, says the acquisition amounts to 20% of Sark's landmass.

Mr Beaumont says the deal could break what he calls a 'deadlock' situation:

“Sark has gone through a difficult period in its history and it’s time to bring that to a close and write a new chapter for the island; securing and improving Sark’s situation for generations to come and giving them a future to be excited about.

If we are successful in acquiring the estate then we’ll have local job opportunities straight away, and job creation as well as career prospects will be another natural consequence of getting the hotels, to take one example, up and running again.”

The financing will involve floating shares on the London and Guernsey stock exchanges.

Mr Lorenz says they will ensure permanent residents have the opportunity to get shares:

“We have pledged to be the most transparent organisation on Sark and we’re now at the stage where we need to speak to a whole range of stakeholders about what the future holds for the island.

We’ve done two and a half years of preparatory work so far and we are now in the final stage of preparing a cash bid.

If Sark Property Company lists on the stock exchange we’ll be setting aside free shares for every permanent Sark resident, so they will have a stake in this whole venture being a success, which I’m increasingly optimistic it can be.”