(Trinidad Guardian) CL Financial chairman Gerald Yetming said yesterday that the Government will soon be making a claim to the conglomerate for the cost of the January 2009 intervention and will request an extension of the three-year Shareholders’ Agreement to allow the negotiations for the claim, expected to be more than TT$10 billion, to be concluded.
Yetming made the statement yesterday in answering a question from the floor at the annual general meeting of Angostura Holdings Ltd, a company that he also chairs and which is 77-per cent owned by CL Financial or Clico. Yetming said: “Government will be making a claim on CL Financial for its intervention into the group.
“It is recognised that the settlement of that claim is not likely to be concluded before June 2012 and therefore there is an understanding that the Shareholders’ Agreement will be extended for a period by a CL Financial shareholders’ meeting.” The June 2012 reference is to the expiration of the Shareholders’ Agreement, signed in June 2009, between CL Financial and the Government, which allowed the latter to appoint four of the seven directors on the conglomerate’s board.
Yetming said that the Government’s claim would be in accordance with the January 2009 Memorandum of Understanding and the June 2009 Shareholders’ Agreement. Another director of CL Financial told the Guardian, on condition that his name not be used, that there was agreement at the level of the CL Financial board that the extension of the Shareholders’ Agreement was the way to go.
The Government intervened and took control of two subsidiaries of CL Financial, Clico and Clico Investment Bank, in January 2009 as both companies faced serious liquidity and solvency issues. Clico received TT$5 billion in cash and bonds from the Government, much of which was converted into preference shares equal to 49 per cent of the insurance company. Clico Investment Bank received TT$2.2 billion in government guarantees and its deposit portfolio was transferred to state-owned First Citizens.
81% accept Clico bailout
The Government has transferred TT$8.2 billion in cash and bonds to the Clico policyholders and investors in the insurance company’s mutual funds, a top Clico official said yesterday. Some 22,494 Clico Executive Felible Premium Annuity policies and investments in the insurance company’s mutual funds out of a total of 27,737 accepted the Government’s bailout offer up to Thursday.
This means that 81 per cent of the Clico policyholders and investors have accepted the package from the Government, which includes TT$75,000 in cash and 20 annual zero-coupon bonds. The offer ends on September 30.
