Entrepreneur George Fenech passes away

One of Malta’s major entrepreneurs, George Fenech, has passed away.

Fenech, 63, the chairman and managing director of the Tumas Group, had been battling cancer for some time.

His name will be associated with some of Malta’s major projects constructed under the Tumas brand, most visibly the Hilton-Portomaso complex.

He was also part of the consortium that secured the construction of Malta’s forthcoming LNG plant with Socar, Siemens and Gasol.

Under Fenech’s guidance the Tumas Group expanded into new areas of activity and undertook the construction and management of the Portomaso project and subsequently other major real estate projects.

Fenech – the eldest of seven children – had no academic qualifications beyond GCEs, but was responsible for his father’s businesses as early as the late 1960s. His father, Tumas Fenech, retired from the police force in 1968 but had already been buying and selling property for two years, making a name for himself in Qormi, his hometown. “I have never met anybody as capable as he was, anywhere. He was a genius when it came to property. He had an incredible vision and he truly felt the pulse of the property market,” Fenech said of his father.

Fenech left the Lyceum in 1968, and started to run the Armada nightclub and soon after a showroom in Qormi for domestic appliances and furniture.

In 1976, he bought a small hotel, the Cartwheel, and soon after the Topaz Aparthotel. By 1983, he started pioneering timeshare, and soon after purchased the Halland Hotel in 1984 as a management agreement with Air Malta was about to expire. In 1985 the Dolmen Hotel was on the verge of bankruptcy, and the Tumas Group took it on.

His greatest acquisition was the old Hilton Hotel in 1986. The Group then purchased and rebuilt the Mgarr Hotel overlooking Gozo’s main port in 1990. Apart from retail, real estate, tourism and construction, the Group branched into car importation, gaming and executive jet transport. The Tumas Group alone commands an asset base worth in excess of €150 million, apart from its subsidiaries.

Reflecting on the completion of the Portomaso marina, he later said: “I have probably done more than I should now… I am looking at opportunities in property overseas. But I do have two interesting residential projects in the pipeline, one in the north of the island and another in the south. They will be built in today’s style, with good landscaping, open areas and a few traditional elements. As I told you, I do not like building boxes.”

By his own admission he hated the limelight, so when a trip to watch Arsenal with his fellow magnate Joseph Gasan and finance minister Tonio Fenech hit the news headlines, the commercial interests of the Gasan-Fenech tandem for a new Portomaso of the south came out into the open.

Despite the criticism by environmentalists of his Portomaso project, Fenech claimed he was “the biggest admirer of those I resented when the project was being developed” – in a back-handed compliment. “I thought certain people were there just to make my life difficult, and it was a very difficult time. But I think it was that resistance which set the standard for large-scale projects in Malta. MEPA for example, has really improved since then. It was a learning curve for us all.”

He had a passion for horses, having been chairman of the Malta Racing Club.

Fenech was married to Patricia, and had two sons, Yorgen and Franco.