Property owners at Red Frog Beach were sent an announcement recently that Casco Capital SA, based in Panama City, will take over as the new operator of the Red Frog Beach Resort beginning on December 1, 2023. The text of the announcement is as follows:
Dear Red Frog Owners,
We are thrilled to announce that Casco Capital will take over as the new operator of the Red Frog Beach Resort, commencing operations on December 1, 2023.
Casco Capital, headquartered in Panama, is a dynamic force in the hotel and hospitality industry across Latin America. As a family-led group, they uphold robust core values, steering their endeavors with a commitment to sustainability. Casco Capital distinguishes itself by delivering unparalleled service and showcasing local culture in its distinctive properties. Through active community engagement and employee development, they create immersive and enriching experiences.
Under this agreement, Casco Capital is set to lease all Red Frog’s phase 1 assets and assume leadership of the existing team. Their responsibilities will span management, sales, marketing, maintenance, transportation, owner relations, food and beverage, activities, and other services. With a seasoned team at the helm, the focus will be on ensuring prompt and effective responses to both owners and guests, all with the overarching aim of creating an exceptional experience characterized by elevated satisfaction levels.
Casco Capital will exclusively manage all facets of Red Frog Beach Resort’s hospitality and owner relations, marking a clear departure from previous partnership structures.
Joe Haley will be stepping down from all aspects related to the resort and ownership at OGI. His exceptional commitment, spanning two decades from the inception of the resort to shaping its visionary development, is truly commendable. We express our profound appreciation for his unwavering perseverance.
Miranda Bussing will also be resigning from her leadership role in the resort segment of the business. Miranda’s tenacious determination and dedicated efforts have played a crucial role in ensuring the company’s success through numerous herculean challenges. We sincerely thank her for her many years of invaluable service.
In the interim, Joe and Miranda will channel their expertise towards fostering partnerships in the utilities sector, overseeing the completion of units currently under construction, and steering the real estate business. Their engagement will persist until all remaining partnerships outlined in the Company’s 4R Strategic plan are firmly established.
Further details on the implications of this change for Red Frog owners will be communicated in due course.
Thank you.
Analysis: On the surface this sounds like good news. It is difficult to imagine a worse resort manager than Joe Haley so any change would almost certainly be an improvement. Leading up to this announcement Joe Haley was relentlessly pressuring property owners to sign an owner services agreement which would have caused any who signed to lose many rights that they currently enjoy. Joe Haley’s pressure tactics included turning off electrical power to some villa owners under various pretenses, denial of access to the property via the Welcome Center (forcing villa owners who had not yet signed to enter/exit through the logistics dock) and physical harassment by the security staff.
Our hope is that Casco Capital understands that customers are to be treated well instead of being harassed and intimidated. Hopefully they will immediately cease the practice of barring some villa owners from using the Welcome Center dock, turn the power back on for all villa owners and clean house in the security staff so that the focus is on a positive experience for the property owners instead of the nightmare that Joe has subjected them to. It is unclear how Casco Capital can immediately improve the situation with the water, power and sewer since all of these infrastructure components have been poorly maintained and are severely overloaded. For example, the sewage treatment system needs to be completely replaced, 1 of the 3 diesel generators is completely broken and the 2nd is close to failure. The water supply is scarce and the resort is therefore unable to operate at capacity. Joe Haley has implemented intermittent shut-offs of water to the marina and the odor of raw sewage permeates the project.
We remain skeptical about the owner experience while Joe is still in charge of the utilities. We also caution anyone contemplating buying a villa, condo, or jungle lodge at Red Frog Beach to be aware that Joe Haley has a long history of diverting deposits on real estate purchases for purposes other than actually building those properties. An excelllent checklist for prospective buyers at Red Frog Beach can be found at http://redfrogproperty.info.
Time will tell. We’ll be watching and providing updates on the conditions under the new resort management.
Update Dec 7, 2023
The COA met with Casco Capital shortly after Casco took over resort operations at Red Frog. The COA board asked Casco if they had spoken with any property owners who actually lived at Red Frog prior to signing the lease agreement. They had not. They had apparently only spoken with absentee owners carefully chosen by Joe Haley. It is now readily apparent that Joe Haley deliberately withheld material information from Casco Capital in an effort to get them to sign the lease agreement.
It has also come to our attention that OGI just raised the power rates at the Marina to $1.07/kwh. To put this in perspective the residents in Bocas pay about $0.24/kwh. So power at Red Frog is a more than 4 times higher than what locals pay.
With Joe Haley still controlling utilities at Red Frog there is apparently nothing that Casco Capital can do. All they can do is shrug their shoulders when villa owners come to them with the reality that power costs are outrageous, water supplies are sporadically cut off to the marina and raw sewage continues to be discharged into the mangroves near the marina and is present in standing pools in various places at the resort with the odor everywhere.
As the truth begins to dawn on Casco Capital about the can of worms they have been sold we predict that the relationship with OGI will sour over time just as it did with the Enjoy Group.
