First Financial Caribbean (FFC), a Cayman Islands-based company, which has made the ‘Sun Money’ transfer company a market leader, particularly in the Diaspora in North America and the United Kingdom, has purchased the Hilton Hotel in Kingston.

Chairman of the new Hilton Board of Directors, FFC president and CEO, Delroy Howell, and board director, Kenarthur Mitchell, sealed the deal with for Hilton Kingston owners Ron Kelly and Tobias Rowe on Friday. 

The Jamaican–born Howell, who is based at FFC headquarters in Grand Cayman, has piloted the growth of FFC, founded in 2004, into a conglomerate spanning businesses in the financial, health and insurance sectors in the Cayman Islands, The Bahamas and the Turks & Caicos Islands.

A former vice president for credit card operations and merchant manager of British American Bank in the Cayman Islands, Howell said the ‘Hilton Hotels’ brand was well known and respected worldwide.  He said the FFC would maintain its franchise relationship with Hilton Hotels International.

He said that the FFC intended to bring its operational and financial management standards to the task of strengthening the Hilton Kingston product, and a comprehensive expansion and upgrading programme is planned for the hotel.