A company majority owned by the Fiji National Provident Fund signed an agreement to buy the Natadola Marine Resort Project in July 2004. The transaction involved $10.2 million in cash and 9,800,000 in shares.

The FNPF’s decision to become the majority shareholder of the project, followed 10 years of untiring effort, entrepreneurial risk and investment by Louis Gerard Saliot and his companies, Natadola Marine Resort Ltd (NMRL), Euro Asia Management (EAMG) and, later, an associate company Asia Pacific Resort International (APRIL). They had created at Natadola the most ambitious and potentially profitable tourism developement scheme in Fiji and the South Pacific.

From 1994, Mr Gerard Saliot worked to lay the foundations for what he envisaged as a world-class resort at the spectacular Natadola beach in Nadroga. Natadola was to become the centre of a complete, integrated development with quality hotels, championship golf course, villas, apartments, cultural and entertainment centre and convention facilities.

Mr Saliot always saw a prime role for the Fijian landowners, not only as landlords, but also as directors and proprietors of service businesses, and as managers and resort employees.

He foresaw the establishment of a small town to serve the commercial and community needs of the development and up to 7000 local workers. Eventually, the resort could attract a total of $500 million in investment in the first phase. On completion, it would have investment of about $1 billion. The project would trigger growth throughout the economy, circulating additional dollars to every part of Fiji.

Apart from new employment, there would be other sources of incomes, including lucrative commercial opportunities, extra government revenues and foreign exchange earnings.

When Mr Gerard Saliot first visited the site in 1994, nothing had been done to realise Natadola’s potential. This had been officially recognised some 20 years earlier when a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) study had identified the area as a prime tourism location.

But while resorts and hotels were constructed in other parts of the Coral Coast, the Nadi area and outer islands, Natadola lay untouched. It took Mr Saliot to shape a detailed vision of what could be created there and to put into place all the varied parts of a proposal to make it happen. Without these, Natadola was just a vacant site, with prospects for eventual development.

But when Gerard Mr Saliot, supported by a team of professionals, had finished the preparations, they had assembled a complete and valuable scheme ready to be implemented.

Mr Saliot, through NMRL and APRIL, spent over $4 million for:

• Planning and expert advice from top professionals;
• An economic impact study;
• Architectural, environmental and technical reports;
• Market surveys;
• Financial and legal studies and legal consultancies;
• Lease arrangements and obtaining official approvals.

Costs included negotiating participation by premier international hotel companies and consultants and making presentations on the project to bankers and likely investors.

It was through Mr Saliot that Fiji’s star international golfer, Vijay Singh, agreed to design and develop a golf course at Natadola. Mr Singh’s fame and international image and reputation are of great worth to Natadola.

Mr Gerard Saliot proposed a marketing strategy for Mr Singh to be Natadola’s “Ambassador to the World.” All this advance work and promotion added to the commercial and investment value of the plan for the Natadola scheme. It gave the project business credibility and goodwill.

After Mr Saliot’s first site inspection in 1994, he began putting together a preliminary concept, as a first step towards a resort master plan. He used the services of Atlantis Associates, an architectural firm based in Tokyo, to assist with this.

While this was progressing, Mr Saliot travelled widely for meetings with financial institutions. He had three sets of discussions with the European
Investment Bank (EIB) in Luxembourg. This led to an agreement for $500,000 to be made available to the Fiji Ministry of Finance for a Natadola Environmental Impact Assessment. The purpose of this was to ensure the project met international standards for conservation and protection of natural resources.

Mr Gerard Saliot had two meetings in Manila with representatives of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) about funding for infrastructure such as roading, water supplies and electricity. However, lending by the ADB became unnecessary when the Fiji Government decided to allocate the finance for infrastructure as an investment in economic growth.

Mr Saliot went to Washington to promote the project with the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Finally EIB and IFC agreed to commit funding. But at that stage the scheme was not advanced enough, and these financiers decided instead to back the Outrigger Resort at Korotogo and the Sofitel at Denarau Island, Nadi.

There were further discussions with the Agence Francaise de Development (AFD) the Proparco Group, Natexis and Lazard Bank in Paris, Colonial and ANZ in Fiji and Sydney.

Mr Saliot commissioned the international accountancy firm, Arthur Andersen, to conduct the first independent study of the scheme. It examined the Fiji market, competing facilities and produced positive cash flow projections.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers, another large multinational accountant, prepared a project status report for NMRL that contained a detailed appraisal of numerous aspects of the scheme.

In a separate project, NMRL hired PWC to assist with the financial structuring of the first phase of the development. Its terms of reference included recommendations for debt and equity finance.

NMRL later engaged HVS International, a leading independent hospitality consultancy, to assist with raising equity and recommending a marketing process for this.

Participation by top hotel operators was pivotal for the success of the scheme. Mr Louis Gerard Saliot travelled the world for business discussions with a number of brand name hoteliers – Marriott Hotels and Resorts in Hong Kong, Accor Hotels Group, one of the world’s largest; Hilton International in London; Club Mediterranee, Paris; Le Meridien Hotels in Paris and London; Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts in Toronto and Hong Kong, and the InterContinental Hotels Group, based in London.