The Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund Hold­ings Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NIF) has made its first dis­tri­b­u­tion in­ter­est pay­ment of $122.2 mil­lion, rep­re­sent­ing the first se­mi-an­nu­al coupon pay­ment on the three se­ries of its four bil­lion dol­lar bond.

NIF was in­cor­po­rat­ed last May as a hold­ing com­pa­ny, ini­tial­ly with high qual­i­ty eq­ui­ty in­vest­ments from sev­er­al com­pa­nies in­clud­ing Colo­nial Life Com­pa­ny (Trinidad) Lim­it­ed (CLI­CO), CLI­CO In­vest­ment Bank (CIB) which is now in liq­ui­da­tion as well as An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (AHL), Re­pub­lic Fi­nance Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (RFHL) and One Caribbean Me­dia lim­it­ed (OCM).

In a full page news­pa­per ad­ver­tise­ment, NIF said the is­sue of the $4 bil­lion bond al­lowed the gov­ern­ment to mon­e­tise the as­sets of the com­pa­nies “in the re­pay­ment of the debt owed to the gov­ern­ment by CLI­CO and CIB” aris­ing out of the mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar bailout of CLI­CO in 2009.

“The bond pro­ceeds were uti­lized for the re­pay­ment of the four bil­lion dol­lar loan note to Gov­ern­ment for the fi­nan­cial as­sets trans­ferred to NIF. The Note was ful­ly re­paid on Oc­to­ber 5, 2018 and fa­cil­i­tat­ed the non-debt fi­nanc­ing of the 2019 na­tion­al bud­get,” NIF added.

Ac­cord­ing to NIF, the sec­ond se­mi-an­nu­al coupon pay­ment is sched­uled to be made in Au­gust and the “fi­nan­cial re­sults of the year end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2018, was con­sis­tent with the fi­nan­cial mod­el out­lined in the Prospec­tus . . .

“The div­i­dend flow in the sec­ond half of 2018 more than cov­ered the first dis­tri­b­u­tion in­ter­est pay­ment. Dur­ing the pe­ri­od Ju­ly 12 to Au­gust 9, 2018, the pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go ex­pressed con­fi­dence in NIF through an over­sub­scrip­tion of the com­pa­ny-is­sued four bil­lion dol­lar coupon rate bonds in three se­ries,” the NIF said.