LIAT is flying, for now, Raftinvest LLC is hoping to own 51% of LIAT (2020), but does it have money and the expertise? time for a reality check?

February 21, 2021

Last year the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda Gaston Browne took the bold move to save LIAT (1974).

Cleveland Seaforth was named Administrator of LIAT (1974), and is a busy man these days keeping LIAT in the air.

I worked with this Raftinvest LLC (address given in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, but I believe it is registered in Montana, USA) for a while, whose CEO is Sivakumar Rasiah a Sri Lankan/Malaysia citizen/national, who claimed he had access to $US 100 million from Malaysia to buy airlines and fix them for about 4 years now.

NOT much is known about Mr. Rasiah, on LinkediN before it was taken down last fall, after the Surinamese checked out Mr. Rasiah on all social media sites, and his last job was with Bombardier as a Technical Writer if my memory serves me well, and was "seeking new employment". RED FLAG.

After failing to secure Sri Lankan and Jet Airways, I introduced Mr. Rasiah to LIAT, I know LIAT well, I have done a lot of work in the Caribbean and always felt LIAT was underperforming due to poor leadership under multi-national ownership that had no vision and little money.

I think LIAT has a great future, with new leadership, new vision and new money I see a Caricom carrier of at least 15 ATR's and 10 regional jets from Belize to Suriname and everything in between, with 3+ bases outside of Antigua, annual revenues over $US 350 million and 1,600 jobs! by 2028. Not NUTS! all doable under MASA, step by step.

Now I regret that the offer for a proposed PPP joint venture went out to Mr. Seaforth in early August 2020, talking about 3 x ATR-42-600's, 2 x DHC-6-300 wet-leased and 150+ employees.

Since then an MOU was signed around early December 2020, to date, no visit to Antigua has taken place, blamed on Covid-19 and no shareholder agreement, but really because Mr. Rasiah has no money! everyone works for free, with promises of a good salary when he has LIAT.

Now that I reflect back, I have to think about who would give $US 100 million to someone that clearly has no airline management experience or education, very little knowledge of the airline industry, no finance experience or education that would show he can run an airline?

As a former merchant banker, I do not understand that it is tough finding money for aviation with professional executive teams in place and a solid business plan, so this is RED FLAG, and I was told by Mr. Rasiah that when he moved money for Jet Airways (India) deal, it cost $US 150,000, hmm

Who can sit on $100 million for years without a return? Mr. Rasiah is 0-2, soon 0-3 I hope, it all stinks!

Now he continues with a team from India, some ex-Jet Airways people, and thinks he will control the airline with his East Indians with his 51% as dictator ignoring the 49% partner. Plans to pay very low wages, and the typical talk from inexperienced people about A320 wet leases, virtual airline, flights to North America, Europe, modified livery, all these things amateurs talk about because they cannot talk about the real stuff, networks, yields, CASK, marketing, demand stimulation, etc.

Now, with no money, he is fishing for a shareholders agreement to find funding, maybe?

This brings me to my thoughts of where this money may be coming from.

----------

Yes, Malaysia, and possibly from the 1MDB scandal where the national sovereign fund where the PM of Malaysia Najib was sentenced to 12 years in prison this past July for looting some $4.5 billion.

This involved many bad schemes, but the main scam was a JV with an unknown PetroSaudi company and 3 different bond issues underwritten by Goldman Sachs worth $US 6.5 billion, recently Goldman Sachs was fined $350 million by Honk Kong, $3.9 billion by Malaysia and $2 billion by the USA for its role in the massive scam.

Much of that money was stolen by the PM and his son-in-law Riza Aziz and Jho Low (CEO Jynwell Capital), who is now wanted around the world and is most likely hiding in Macau.

Anyway, the looted money was distributed between dozens and dozens of offshore LLC in well-known dubious tax havens used to park money or assets.

The well-known trick is to take stolen money and hide them in many shell LLC companies and move it around enough times between dubious jurisdictions and LLCs until no one knew but a few where the money came from!

Companies like:

Goodstar (Seychelles) - Cistenique (Curacao) - Tanore (Bermuda) - Devonshire (BVI) - Vasco Investments (Luxembourg) - Condo Acquisition (Cayman Islands) - Blackrock Global (Singapore) - Enterprise (Curacao) -ADKMIC (BVI) - etc. etc.

In this maybe is the source of $US 100 million? I don't know but nothing else makes sense why basically no one special in aviation circles can get access to such a large amount of money.

I leave that to the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) Mr. Rasiah's home country and the FBI, because if the funds are in $US then the US Treasury people should be on it.

Anyway, my suggestion to PM Browne is to be careful and know your customer and know the source of the funds, just be careful, whom you are looking to run your precious LIAT.

A bright future is ahead, PM Browne was right to save LIAT and Cleveland Seaforth is doing what he can with limited liquidity, step by step in this global Covid-19 disaster.

Jho Low is talking to the Americans to return the money, so some of those offshore LLC's holding money may be out of money? hmm is that why Mr. Rasiah has no money today to do the LIAT deal? I don't know, but could be.