JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

CLF liquidators reject Angostura's $984.5M debt

by

188 days ago
20240718

The liq­uida­tors of the CL Fi­nan­cial group have re­ject­ed a claim by An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Ltd to be re­paid a debt of $984.55 mil­lion, the com­pa­ny's chair­man, Ter­rence Bharath, told shocked share­hold­ers at the an­nu­al meet­ing yes­ter­day.

The debt, which is de­scribed as "cur­rent re­ceiv­ables from re­lat­ed par­ties," has been on An­gos­tu­ra's bal­ance sheet since 2009, when the amount record­ed in the an­nu­al re­port of the rum and bit­ters pro­duc­er was stat­ed as $974.20 mil­lion.

At the meet­ing, which was held at the com­pa­ny's Laven­tille head­quar­ters and pro­duc­tion cen­tre, Bharath ex­plained that the rea­sons giv­en by the liq­uida­tors for re­ject­ing the re­ceiv­able were that the An­gos­tu­ra claim was statute barred and be­cause of a lack of doc­u­men­ta­tion for the claim.

The An­gos­tu­ra chair­man said some of the doc­u­ments pro­vid­ing proof of the claim have dis­ap­peared.

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns raised by share­hold­ers of the com­pa­ny, Bharath said An­gos­tu­ra in­tends to pur­sue the mat­ter of its claim vig­or­ous­ly and had re­tained an Eng­lish King's Coun­sel and a lo­cal Se­nior Coun­sel to de­fend it.

For many years, CL Fi­nan­cial and its sub­sidiary Cli­co were An­gos­tu­ra's largest share­hold­ers, own­ing 44.96 per cent and 32.53 per cent of the rum and bit­ters pro­duc­er re­spec­tive­ly.

CL Fi­nan­cial col­lapsed in 2009, with the Gov­ern­ment ac­quir­ing 49 per cent of Cli­co, the group's main sub­sidiary, and pro­vid­ing the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny with $4.99 bil­lion in pref­er­ence shares.

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert went to court in 2017 to have CL Fi­nan­cial wound up. As a re­sult of the le­gal ac­tion, joint liq­uida­tors from the fi­nan­cial ser­vices com­pa­ny, Grant Thorn­ton, were ap­point­ed by the High Court to take over the man­age­ment of the group.

An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Ltd's 2016 an­nu­al re­port states: "There were no move­ments in the pro­vi­sion re­lat­ed to the group’s par­ent com­pa­ny re­ceiv­able dur­ing the year.

"Dur­ing the year, ne­go­ti­a­tions com­menced be­tween the man­age­ment of the Group and its par­ent com­pa­ny, with re­spect to set­tle­ment of the in­ter­com­pa­ny re­ceiv­able. An ex­pert con­sul­tant was en­gaged to as­sist with de­vel­op­ing a set­tle­ment struc­ture.

"As at year end and date of ap­proval of these con­sol­i­dat­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments there were no in­di­ca­tions that the pro­vi­sion for im­pair­ment re­lat­ed to the re­ceiv­able should be re­vised."

Bharath al­so an­nounced that the Gov­ern­ment had ini­ti­at­ed a com­pul­so­ry ac­qui­si­tion process for land at To­ba­go Plan­ta­tions, a com­pa­ny that An­gos­tu­ra and Guardian Hold­ings own. To­ba­go Plan­ta­tions was the de­vel­op­er of the es­tate on which the Mag­dale­na Ho­tel and sev­er­al man­sions are lo­cat­ed.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored