Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Lawrence Duprey, the for­mer chair­man of CL Fi­nan­cial (CLF) and the Colo­nial Life In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Cli­co), has died at 89. In the last year, as his health de­te­ri­o­rat­ed, he moved back to T&T from Mi­a­mi with his wife, Sylvia. He died at a health fa­cil­i­ty in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day evening.

When he re­turned to Trinidad, for­mer Cli­co agent and for­mer may­or of San Fer­nan­do Ian Ather­ly host­ed a wel­come home par­ty with for­mer agents last June at his es­tab­lish­ment, Atherlys By The Park Restau­rant.

Ather­ly de­scribed him as a “gi­ant of a man” who had spent the last 15 years of his life fight­ing to re­gain some el­e­ment of the bil­lion-dol­lar em­pire he had built. “He died a lone­ly man,” he said.

He said it was bit­ter­sweet for Duprey that all the com­pa­nies and ven­tures he had em­barked on had turned around and were now prof­itable; the State ad­e­quate­ly com­pen­sat­ed for its liq­uid­i­ty in­jec­tion, but CLF re­mained in liq­ui­da­tion, with the con­glom­er­ate now dis­man­tled and sold off in pieces.

Duprey re­mains the largest share­hold­er of CLF, but with the com­pa­ny in liq­ui­da­tion, it would be the last to get any­thing from earn­ings. In Jan­u­ary 2009, when Duprey ap­proached the Gov­ern­ment cap-in-hand, the Gov­ern­ment im­me­di­ate­ly stepped in to curb any sys­temic risk to the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial state. The at­trac­tive in­ter­est rates had at­tract­ed over 25,000 peo­ple to in­vest bil­lions, and Cli­co’s breadth had stretched from cred­it unions to prime state en­ter­pris­es to ow­ing mil­lions to lo­cal banks.

Duprey had de­scribed his em­pire, which com­prised some 65 com­pa­nies in 32 coun­tries, as be­ing caught up in a per­fect storm of eco­nom­ic col­lapse. But the Gov­ern­ment al­so had to in­ject sums to top up the starved Statu­to­ry Fund and meet the re­quire­ments of pol­i­cy­hold­ers who had opt­ed out of busi­ness with Cli­co.

In turn, the as­sets of CLF were used as se­cu­ri­ty for the in­jec­tion. The ma­jor­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment’s $30 bil­lion bailout was spent on pay­ing back pol­i­cy­hold­ers of Cli­co and British Amer­i­can’s Ex­ec­u­tive Flex­i­ble Pre­mi­um An­nu­ity (EF­PA), which was a fa­cil­i­ty cre­at­ed by Cli­co to raise mon­ey and bore an above-mar­ket, an­nu­al in­ter­est rate of ten per cent.

En­tre­pre­neur­ial

A Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) in­to the col­lapse of Cli­co and re­lat­ed sub­sidiaries, as well as the Hin­du Cred­it Union, was ini­ti­at­ed by the State. The rev­e­la­tions at the com­mis­sion were star­tling—mil­lion-dol­lar salaries paid to ex­ec­u­tives, com­pa­nies cre­at­ed by ex­ec­u­tives and hiv­ing off mil­lions in con­tracts, and bla­tant breach­es in gov­er­nance—at the ex­pense of pol­i­cy­hold­ers.

Cli­co was an in­sur­ance com­pa­ny formed by Cyril Duprey in 1936. The reins were sub­se­quent­ly passed on to his nephew Lawrence in 1988, who grew the com­pa­ny in­to the con­glom­er­ate CLF.

The tale of how Cli­co came to be and the in­ner work­ings of this pri­vate com­pa­ny have been brought out in var­i­ous wit­ness state­ments dur­ing the 18-month-long CoE. For­mer CIB chair­man Mervyn As­sam told the en­quiry that Duprey was the op­po­site of his fru­gal un­cle af­ter he in­her­it­ed the com­pa­ny.

“He is very en­tre­pre­neur­ial and not at all risk-averse. He has a rep­u­ta­tion for be­ing able to see an op­por­tu­ni­ty and go af­ter it. He al­ways saw things on a big scale and had the idea that was how com­pa­nies in Eu­rope, the Unit­ed States, and Cana­da were able to de­vel­op from small to medi­um to large to be­come transna­tion­al com­pa­nies,” As­sam told the CoE. Duprey ex­pand­ed Cli­co to the Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank and cre­at­ed the um­brel­la com­pa­ny, CL Fi­nan­cial. It was CIB that fund­ed in­vest­ments in­to the en­er­gy and bev­er­age busi­ness.

In his wit­ness state­ment, for­mer group fi­nan­cial di­rec­tor Michael Car­ballo de­scribed Duprey as a “very per­sua­sive, very log­i­cal man” and the ul­ti­mate deal-mak­er. “When it came to de­ci­sions, com­mer­cial de­ci­sions, who had the ul­ti­mate au­thor­i­ty to ap­prove or say no?” lead coun­sel for the en­quiry, British Queen’s Coun­sel Pe­ter Carter asked Car­ballo.

“He has that strength about him—very per­sua­sive, able to per­suade a board,” Car­ballo has said. Car­ballo has said Duprey’s in­sis­tence on the ac­qui­si­tion of Las­celles de Mer­ca­do, a US$750 mil­lion Ja­maican ac­qui­si­tion, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

By then, Cli­co and British Amer­i­can, aid­ed by CLF, had long since ex­pand­ed be­yond the re­mit of any in­sur­ance com­pa­ny, with ex­pen­sive re­al es­tate in­vest­ments in Flori­da cost­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions. Its top play­ers were po­lit­i­cal­ly aligned: Duprey’s ad­vis­er Car­los John be­came a Works Min­is­ter un­der the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment, while his for­mer fi­nan­cial group head An­dre Mon­teil was the PNM’s par­ty trea­sur­er.

For his part, Duprey has blamed the fail­ure of Cli­co on the peo­ple he tasked with man­ag­ing it. In an in­ter­view in 2017, Duprey said he felt he was duped in­to dis­pos­ing the com­pa­ny’s as­sets in Jan­u­ary 2009. The Gov­ern­ment had man­aged the CLF con­glom­er­ate through a share­hold­er agree­ment orig­i­nal­ly signed in June 2009, but Duprey had said he was co­erced in­to agree­ing to the sit­u­a­tion in the first place. He blamed pol­i­tics for how he even­tu­al­ly lost con­trol of it.

In his wit­ness state­ment pro­vid­ed to the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in Oc­to­ber 2012, he said, “The glob­al col­lapse co­in­cid­ing with an ever-im­pos­si­ble re­vamp of the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work and a re­fusal of Gov­ern­ment-owned en­ti­ties to back the group af­ter all the years of ben­e­fit that they had re­ceived from the in­ter­est in­come that the group had gen­er­at­ed led to the need for some ul­ti­mate gov­ern­ment sup­port.

“I would have pre­ferred, as I deal with fur­ther on in this state­ment, that the in­ter­ven­tion had not been so po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed and had been di­rect­ed at pro­tec­tion, for I be­lieve had that been the po­si­tion we would have fared a great deal bet­ter. Los­ing all the in­tel­lec­tu­al cap­i­tal as a con­di­tion of in­ter­ven­tion was a bad de­ci­sion and was not one repli­cat­ed in the USA or the UK.

“It is of note in this re­gard that I was firm of the view in Jan­u­ary 2009 that the run on CIB and the re­sul­tant liq­uid­i­ty or cash flow is­sues were much in­spired by the de­ci­sion of State-owned or run en­ti­ties mak­ing de­ci­sions at or about the same time to with­draw rolling de­posits that had been pre­vi­ous­ly rolled from ma­tu­ri­ty to ma­tu­ri­ty with­out ques­tion. The de­ci­sion to seek funds back came in re­al­i­ty out of the blue and caused se­vere prob­lems.”

Trib­utes for a vi­sion­ary

For­mer plan­ning min­is­ter and for­mer CLF di­rec­tor Dr Bhoe Tewarie: “The loss of the Duprey Em­pire and Lawrence Duprey’s lone­ly end makes his pass­ing very sad. He helped a lot of peo­ple in his life­time and had a char­i­ta­ble heart. My con­do­lences go out to Sylvia and his son, and to his gen­uine friends and fam­i­ly. He was a very com­pli­cat­ed man with very big ideas, and he loved Trinidad and To­ba­go but un­der­stood its lim­i­ta­tions, and he tried to find ways of cir­cum­vent­ing them.

“He made busi­ness mis­takes and mis­cal­cu­la­tions, and some took ad­van­tage of his trust. These in­evitably took a toll. But he al­so took big, cal­cu­lat­ed risks, which paid off and made a dif­fer­ence to this coun­try. He was brave enough to cre­ate an in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ship that brought the first pri­vate-sec­tor in­vest­ment in methanol here. An­gos­tu­ra was a good ac­qui­si­tion.

“Af­ter the war, ini­tial­ly, he lis­tened to ad­vice and made peace with the re­pub­lic, which was a good de­ci­sion for a good in­vest­ment. But his ap­petite for high risk brought him down when forces con­verged be­gin­ning in 2008 to trig­ger a glob­al fi­nan­cial cri­sis, a se­vere fall in en­er­gy prices, and a re­al es­tate crash si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. He was too heav­i­ly in­vest­ed in all three, and he had lever­aged too many as­sets and was too heav­i­ly in debt. “Cli­co as a com­pa­ny had cor­nered it­self be­cause it was lever­aged to fi­nance every­thing. By do­ing so, it put peo­ple’s sav­ings, in­sur­ance poli­cies, and pen­sions at risk to fi­nance a range of in­vest­ments that were not con­tribut­ing to rev­enue, cash flow, or prof­its. Lawrence Duprey ac­knowl­edged good ad­vice and cau­tion, but the cul­ture of his ex­ec­u­tive team could be reck­less and un­bri­dled, and good ad­vice was not suf­fi­cient to rein Lawrence Duprey in.

“Per­son­al­i­ties were more pow­er­ful than in­sti­tu­tions with­in the com­pa­ny. And over­sight in­sti­tu­tions in the coun­try did not play their man­dat­ed roles on be­half of the State with the time­ly and ef­fec­tive vig­i­lance and sense of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that was re­quired ei­ther.

"He was reck­less in pol­i­tics too, and that ul­ti­mate­ly meant that he be­came po­lit­i­cal­ly vul­ner­a­ble in a vin­dic­tive cul­ture. He nev­er was an in­sid­er in T&T’s busi­ness elite cir­cles ei­ther. Such things turned out to be cost­ly. In a way, even in his most suc­cess­ful days, he was a lon­er. He was a good en­tre­pre­neur, and he dreamt big. But or­gan­i­sa­tions need more than suc­cess­ful en­tre­pre­neurs and big dreams to make them sus­tain­able.

"He was a colour­ful, al­most myth­i­cal fig­ure in his best days. A lot of peo­ple will re­mem­ber his good­will and gen­eros­i­ty. May his soul rest in eter­nal peace.”

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an, un­der whose tenure the Cli­co In­vest­ment Fund (CIF) was born: “As we mourn the loss of Lawrence Duprey, we must be hum­bled, for he was in­deed, per­haps the most vi­sion­ary en­tre­pre­neur of our times. He was able to ‘idle’ re­sources in­to na­tion­al pros­per­i­ty, for which he faced ob­sta­cles and for which the T&T econ­o­my con­tin­ues to ben­e­fit—it was the pil­lar of our suc­cess in build­ing a di­ver­si­fied struc­ture.

“In­deed, a strate­gic thinker and a true pa­tri­ot, Lawrence Duprey’s lega­cy will be hard to sur­pass. T&T owes him a huge debt of grat­i­tude, and I hope he will be so ho­n­oured by our na­tion.”

Gabriel Faria, for­mer chief ex­ec­u­tive of An­gos­tu­ra and for­mer chief ex­ec­u­tive of the T&T Cham­ber: “Lawrence Duprey was an ex­tra­or­di­nary in­di­vid­ual, whose jour­ney was marked by re­mark­able achieve­ments, re­silience in the face of ad­ver­si­ty, and an in­domitable spir­it that in­spired us all. Lawrence was not just a busi­ness mag­nate; he was a vi­sion­ary who saw pos­si­bil­i­ties where oth­ers saw ob­sta­cles. He built a busi­ness em­pire that trans­formed in­dus­tries and our coun­try and touched count­less lives. His in­no­v­a­tive ideas and fear­less pur­suit of ex­cel­lence set new stan­dards in the busi­ness world, earn­ing him re­spect and ad­mi­ra­tion from peers and com­peti­tors alike.

“But Lawrence’s sto­ry was not with­out its chal­lenges. He faced dif­fi­cult times and ex­pe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant loss­es. Yet, even in the dark­est mo­ments, he re­mained stead­fast and re­silient. He taught us that true suc­cess is not mea­sured by wealth alone but by the courage to rise af­ter a fall and the wis­dom to learn from every ex­pe­ri­ence. He nev­er lost sight of what tru­ly mat­tered. He was a de­vot­ed fam­i­ly man and a loy­al friend, and he cre­at­ed many mil­lion­aires, some may say even bil­lion­aires.

“Lawrence’s lega­cy is not just in the busi­ness­es he built but in the lives he touched and the in­spi­ra­tion he pro­vid­ed to as­pir­ing en­tre­pre­neurs. He showed us that vi­sion, per­se­ver­ance, and in­tegri­ty are the cor­ner­stones of a mean­ing­ful life. I will re­mem­ber him not on­ly for his suc­cess­es but al­so for his un­wa­ver­ing spir­it and the love he shared with those around him. May his mem­o­ry con­tin­ue to in­spire us to dream big, act bold­ly, and live with pur­pose.”

For­mer CL ex­ec­u­tive Car­los John: “Well, to me, he was an out­stand­ing in­dus­tri­al­ist and a gi­ant of a man. A true pa­tri­ot. As well as a great phil­an­thropist.”

For­mer CLF di­rec­tor Michael Car­ballo: “He was a one-of-a-kind en­tre­pre­neur. Had a very good heart. Want­ed the best for the coun­try. A risk-tak­er of sorts but tru­ly a good per­son and busi­ness­man.