Fi­nal bids are ex­pect­ed by mid-Ju­ly for the tra­di­tion­al in­sur­ance port­fo­lios of Cli­co and British Amer­i­can (Trinidad) Lim­it­ed (BAT).

The Cen­tral Bank told the T&T Guardian the ob­jec­tive is to have the tra­di­tion­al in­sur­ance poli­cies, such as life and home in­sur­ance trans­ferred to an­oth­er qual­i­fied in­sti­tu­tion that can take care of the pol­i­cy­hold­ers smooth­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly.

"Many in­sur­ance com­pa­nies have sold a port­fo­lio of busi­ness to oth­er in­sur­ance com­pa­nies over the years and pol­i­cy hold­ers' in­sur­ance cov­er­age and pen­sions con­tin­ued un­in­ter­rupt­ed," the bank said in a state­ment.

"The sale of the tra­di­tion­al in­sur­ance port­fo­lio does not mean that Cli­co is be­ing wound up since Cli­co will con­tin­ue to deal with its oth­er li­a­bil­i­ties and cred­i­tors in­clud­ing the Gov­ern­ment."

The Cen­tral Bank said the planned sale of the tra­di­tion­al in­sur­ance port­fo­lios to a suit­ably qual­i­fied buy­er had been pub­licly an­nounced as part of the res­o­lu­tion strat­e­gy for the two com­pa­nies since 2014.

The state­ment con­tin­ued: "Up­dates on progress of the sale–and oth­er as­pects of the res­o­lu­tion–are sub­mit­ted by the Cen­tral Bank to the High Court and to Par­lia­ment on a quar­ter­ly ba­sis; the lat­est one cov­ers de­vel­op­ments through March 31, 2016.

"The sale of the port­fo­lios is be­ing con­duct­ed through a trans­par­ent and open bid­ding process–ad­vi­sors with the ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tu­ar­i­al and ad­vi­so­ry ex­pe­ri­ence were hired in Oc­to­ber 2015 and March 2016 for Cli­co and BAT re­spec­tive­ly; in Feb­ru­ary a large num­ber of lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al in­sur­ance com­pa­nies, banks and oth­er fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions were in­vit­ed to bid; fol­low­ing ini­tial bids in April, com­pa­nies were short­list­ed; and present­ly the short­list­ed com­pa­nies are ex­am­in­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion in or­der to make fi­nal bids by mid-Ju­ly 2016."

Mem­bers of the Unit­ed Pol­i­cy­hold­ers Group (UPG) ex­pressed con­cern this week that the Cen­tral Bank was mov­ing to "qui­et­ly" wind up Cli­co. Spokesman, An­geli Gad­jadar, said the group had re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that four com­pa­nies were in the process of bid­ding on the is­sue.

How­ev­er, this was de­nied by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert who told the T&T Guardian that in March, con­sis­tent with the pub­lished Cli­co Res­o­lu­tion Plan, the Cen­tral Bank in­vit­ed more than 40 lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions to make of­fers to pur­chase the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny's tra­di­tion­al port­fo­lio.