HoldingCo will eventually grow beyond owning the cellular company NewCo. It will eventually take on other "private placement partnerships", like potentially the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC), or Bahamasair and others.

In the meantime, the advisor to the Cellular Liberalization Task Force (CLTF) on the matter of soliciting investors for HoldingCo, Gowon Bowe - of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) - said the main goal is to ensure broad Bahamian ownership for HoldingCo. The task force announced the search would soon begin for investors into HoldingCo.

Bowe stressed that the search for investors - which will focus perhaps on such groups as private and public pension funds and cooperative credit unions - was "by no means" a private placement.

"It is looking at how do I raise the funds by collective group in order to make this significant investment and then get the ownership to the retail persons once there is a proximal entity," he said. "NewCo could be structured where - in order to minimize the investment necessary by both Cable Bahamas as well as HoldingCo - it takes on certain debt instruments: one of the common things is the vendor financing," he said.

Bowe explained that many of the companies that make the technical equipment required to provide the service are also major financing groups, and so will likely finance it.

"Preference shares could be a model as a method of financing, which is very successfully used by Cable Bahamas already in its existing business model," he said.

"Ultimately, HoldingCo as it grows beyond the simple cellular ownership and potentially takes on other private placement partnerships like BEC potentially, or as we potentially privatize Bahamasair and others, there could very well be a financing structure that allows for certain elements like preference shares.

"The ultimate objective is that the equity participants are always going to be broad Bahamians," he said.

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