• Submitted by: manso
• Business and Economy
• 09 / 15 / 2011

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Toronto-based Sherritt International Corp., Cuba’s largest private foreign investor, announced it added the chairman of a British telecom to its board of directors.

Sir Richard Lapthorne, 68, is known for his high-profile stint as chairman of the company that owns Formula One team McLaren, but his background is mainly in the telecommunications industry. Since 2003, Lapthorne has been chairman of Cable & Wireless, a London-based company with increasing interest in the Cuban telecommunications market.

Late last year, the Caribbean subsidiary of Cable & Wireless Communications plc became the landing partner in Jamaica of a Cuban-Venezuelan undersea cable, beating out two rivaling companies. The joint venture allows the company to “play a role in developing telecommunications in Cuba,” CWC CEO Tony Rice said in February.

The biggest telecommunications opportunity in the Cuban market is to become a junior partner of state telecom ETECSA. After buying out Telecom Italia in a $706 million deal last year, the Cuban government is still looking for a foreign partner in ETECSA. In March last year, Rice said C&W was interested in Telecom Italia’s 27-percent stake, attracted by Cuba’s growth potential in the mobile phone sector.

“The starting point is the cable landing, but the greater prize is working with the [Cuban] government to develop its telecoms market,” Rice was reported as saying at the time. A Cable & Wireless spokesman later said that reports about an ETECSA stake purchase went “too far.”

Sherritt has diversified investments in Cuba, ranging from nickel processing to oil and gas, and electricity generation.

Source: www.cubastandard.com/2011/09/14/sherritt-adds-new-director/