Potential buyers for the stalled Caroline Bay resort have dropped out of the running, the finance minister said yesterday.

It was understood that buyers for the Morgan’s Point development were on track to sign a deal earlier this year.

But Curtis Dickinson said: “There were buyers. The offers were not deemed to be satisfactory by the joint provisional liquidators and so they’ve gone away.

“We continue to work to find ways of moving this project forward with respect to our own involvement in it.“

Mr Dickinson, whose comments on Caroline Bay start at 20:34 on the video, added: “The assets of Caroline Bay are under the control of the joint provisional liquidators – who were appointed by the court and who are independent – and that is EY Bermuda.

“EY had run a process to try and find ways to get money back for those persons who were creditors for Caroline Bay.

“Government has a substantial claim by virtues of the guarantees that we put into place and we ended up paying money to the investors who purchased the bonds that were held by the folks who lent money to the Caroline bay portion of the project.”

Work on the Sandys site, the former US Naval Annex, ground to a halt in 2018 after the original developers ran out of financing for the project.

The Government was left with a $165 million guarantee - which was arranged by the former One Bermuda Alliance Government.

Mr Dickinson said earlier this year that the Government decided to buy the debt to “give us more rights than exercising the guarantees”.

But he warned that any offers from potential buyers would have to be “sufficient to cover our claim”.