Family Feud Over the Estate of the Late Hotel Mogul Gordon 'Butch' Stewart Continues
KINGSTON, Jamaica – The family feud over the multibillion-dollar estate of late hotel mogul, Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, has taken another turn, with family members both here and in the United States penning an open letter to Adam Stewart, who is the chief executive officer of Sandals and the ATL Groups.
The late Gordon “Butch” Stewart (File Photo)Since his death in January 2021, disputes over Butch Stewart’s will and control of the prized Sandals hotel empire, held in a Bahamian trust, have raged in courts.
In the latest episode, the US-based Cheryl Hamersmith-Stewart and her three children along with Robert ‘Bobby’ Stewart, another of Butch’s Jamaican born children, have told Adam Stewart that they have been forced to issue the open letter because “we cannot allow you to impugn the integrity of your father’s closest advisers and friends”.
In the letter they said that they have become aware of Adam Stewart’s campaign in the Jamaica Observer newspaper, of which he is the executive chairman and director, regarding “Butch” Stewart’s, wishes for his estate”.
“We are deeply disappointed that you have chosen to submit Butch’s family – our family – to this ‘trial by media’. We do not respond publicly lightly, nor for our own benefit. However, we feel the need to respond to the serious and false allegations raised in your statement, in order to protect those whom you are now unfairly targeting in your ongoing quest to defy and overturn your father’s wishes.”
They insist that following his death in 2021, Butch Stewart “left detailed wishes as to how his estate and the trusts he had founded ought to be dealt with.
“What Butch wanted was for family members to receive allotted shares in the businesses he so successfully founded, and for there to be a family-run board of directors with representation from all sides of the family. The share that Butch wanted you to receive was 16.67%. Not 100%.”
They wrote that “when a beloved family member dies, the tradition in Jamaica is that loved ones will come together to fulfil his last wishes”
But they accuse Adam Stewart of wanting to go “against Butch’s wishes, and have set out on a campaign to overturn them.
“You appear to want more than Butch gave you, and you seem willing to stop at nothing to get it, even if it wounds the people whom Butch most trusted and relied on during his lifetime.”
They said that in his quest to overturn his father’s wishes and obtain control for himself, Adam Stewart continues to “resist the proper administration of Butch’s estate” by among other things seeking to replace the current executors as well as “failing to provide the executors with the necessary financial information required in order to progress the administration of the estate”.
They wrote n the open letter that the actions have frustrated the executors’ efforts to settle the estate and distribute the assets, “disproportionately affecting those of your siblings whom you have excluded from the benefit of the companies founded by your father, again against Butch’s express wishes.
They said “it remains to be seen whether in your quest for control you have also harmed the interests of the loyal employees of the companies, but your resistance to independent scrutiny is a cause for grave concern”.
The US-based family said that they “remain absolutely committed to seeing to it that your father’s wishes are implemented, not defied, and that the businesses he worked so hard to create will flourish for the benefit of all of their stakeholders, not just you”.
