(Trinidad Guardian) – Colonial Life Insurance Company Ltd posted profits of $5.2 billion at the end of December 2014, according to the company’s latest financial statements. The T&T Guardian obtained the information after it was posted on Clico’s website on Wednesday afternoon.
A source said revelation of the information followed very recent queries by interested parties this week to the Central Bank on various aspects of the Clico-CL issue, including when the last financial statements would be published.
In the statements posted online, it was noted that Clico’s profit for the year (2014) attributable to equity holders was $5,132,999 million. The 2013 figure was $406 million.
The statements noted Prescience Insurance Consultants and Actuaries’ November 2015 assessment which put the company’s policy liabilities at December 2014 as TT$20,748,271,000.
It was also stated that the gain on sale of corporate securities in 2014 was due to the realisation of $5,252 million on the disposal of Methanol Holdings (Trinidad) Limited shares.
The statements also detailed the process which the company has endured since September 2009, when government injected additional capital into the company via acquisition of ordinary shares and preference shares, following the collapse of CL Financial.
This transaction resulted in government’s ownership of 49 per cent of the share capital of the company. The statements indicated that “company management has worked to manage the effects of certain risks which materialised in 2009. Additionally, the board is working on further developing the governance framework which would allow the company to manage effectively its risks in the future.
Future plans include: Establishment of a formal Risk Department within the company, establishment of a formal Compliance Department within the company, Insurance and Financial Risk Management, Insurance Risk.
Among a multitude of points, it was noted rental income arising from the investment properties owned by the company amounted to $21.6 million (2013: $19.5 million).
CL Financial majority shareholder Lawrence Duprey, who saw the statements on Wednesday, told T&T Guardian that situation had caused him to renew his call to government and the Central Bank to examine his plan to repay the debt to the state and regain control of his companies.
Duprey only recently sent a letter to Finance Minister Colm Imbert seeking to open talks for him to regain ownership of his company and has retained Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj SC to seek his interests.
“You’re now seeing the magnitude of the company we built … we built a very strong company to withstand the ups and downs of the business cycles and here it is. The value has manifested in these financial results,” Duprey said in a telephone interview.
He said the recent regulators of the companies had failed to recognise the situation and that the companies were strong to the point of surviving the economic downturn.
“They survived even in the bad times. It’s a pity the founders’ descendants were not allowed to play their true role in the business cycles it should have been,” he added.
Lobbying for management of the companies, he said: “The people who are there now are not really managing per se, since they’re simply benefiting from the strong foundation we put in.
”If they didn’t decimate it by selling it off, you could see where the companies could have made a strong contribution to T&T – and right now the country needs a strong Clico. It must be allowed to work for the public.”
Policyholder/shareholder Kerry Ramjack, who said the latest financial statements echoed other policyholders’ views, meanwhile told the T&T Guardian that for the first time in years, the “pledged assets” of the company show the actuaries’ certification of $24.5 billion in Clico’s statutory fund and the certification of liabilities regarding policyholders being $20.7 million.
“So if we’re at a situation with two such figures, why is the company still under Central Bank jurisdiction, subject to Section 44d (Insurance Act) and why are all policyholders not being paid their contractual obligations, and last, why is Clico not being continued to operate as a going concern, because it is in a healthy position?” he asked.
