Colo­nial Life In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny (Cli­co) on Mon­day re­port­ed af­ter-tax prof­it of $2.30 bil­lion for the year end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2023. That was 271 per cent more than the $621.4 mil­lion the com­pa­ny de­clared in its 2022 fi­nan­cial year.

The in­sur­ance com­pa­ny re­port­ed a $1.99 bil­lion gain on the dis­pos­al of its sub­sidiary, Methanol Hold­ings In­ter­na­tion­al Ltd, and gen­er­at­ed $958 mil­lion in gross prof­it from its en­er­gy op­er­a­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cli­co fi­nan­cials, “On De­cem­ber 22, 2023, the sale of the sub­sidiary, Methanol Hold­ings In­ter­na­tion­al Ltd (MHIL) to Con­sol­i­dat­ed En­er­gy Ltd (CEL) was com­plet­ed pur­suant to the ap­proval of the share­hold­ers of Cli­co.

“Cli­co sold 5,653,700 shares or 56.53 per cent of the is­sued and out­stand­ing shares in Methanol Hold­ings In­ter­na­tion­al Lim­it­ed.

“By this trans­ac­tion, Cli­co ef­fec­tive­ly re­lin­quished con­trol of MHIL and all bal­ances from the state­ment of fi­nan­cial po­si­tion were not in­clud­ed as at the year end.

Cli­co’s share­hold­ers are CL Fi­nan­cial with 51 per cent and the Gov­ern­ment with 49 per cent.

Cli­co with­drew its abridged fi­nan­cials from pub­li­ca­tion in the me­dia on Sat­ur­day, but the ac­counts were post­ed on its web­site on Mon­day.

The pub­li­ca­tion of the com­pa­ny’s re­sults for 2023 were de­layed be­cause the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny dis­cov­ered an er­ror, ac­cord­ing to Cli­co chair, Jen­nifer Fred­er­ick.

CL Fi­nan­cial liq­uida­tor promis­es Ba­hamas “pay­ments short­ly”

The Ba­hamas gov­ern­ment says the liq­uida­tor of the in­sol­vent CL Fi­nan­cial, is propos­ing to de­clare pay­ments short­ly, the Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion re­port­ed yes­ter­day.

“We have been made aware that there has been a set­tle­ment with the liq­uida­tors and the Trinida­di­an gov­ern­ment or au­thor­i­ties that would make the Cli­co pol­i­cy­hold­ers whole. The is­sue we have at the mo­ment is get­ting the liq­uida­tor present to sit down so that we can re­solve these things,” Prime Min­is­ter Phillip Davis told Par­lia­ment.

Lst year, Cli­co (Ba­hamas) liq­uida­tor was giv­en the au­thor­i­ty to ac­cept a US$110.827 mil­lion set­tle­ment that could ful­ly re­pay all debts owed to pol­i­cy­hold­ers, cred­i­tors and the gov­ern­ment.

Chief Jus­tice Sir Ian Winder, in what had been hailed as a po­ten­tial “quan­tum leap for­ward” for the pol­i­cy hold­ers, gave Craig A. ‘Tony’ Gomez, the Bak­er Tilly Gomez ac­coun­tant and prin­ci­pal, the go-ahead to ac­cept the sum of­fered by liq­uida­tors for its Trinidad-based par­ent, CL Fi­nan­cial.

“The of­fi­cial liq­uida­tor be at lib­er­ty to ac­cept the amount of US$110.827m ad­ju­di­cat­ed by the of­fi­cial liq­uida­tors of CL Fi­nan­cial on Cli­co (Ba­hamas) proof of debt filed on May 16, 2018, in CL Fi­nan­cial’s liq­ui­da­tion,” the Chief Jus­tice wrote in a Ju­ly 24, 2023, or­der filed with the Supreme Court.

The fig­ure rep­re­sents the set­tle­ment of the Cli­co (Ba­hamas) claim against its Trinida­di­an par­ent. CL Fi­nan­cial had guar­an­teed US$58 mil­lion or 79.5 per­cent, of the monies its Ba­hami­an sub­sidiary had ad­vanced to an­oth­er group en­ti­ty, Cli­co En­ter­pris­es, which sub­se­quent­ly de­fault­ed on the loan re­pay­ments.

Davis, who was re­spond­ing to a ques­tion from op­po­si­tion leg­is­la­tor, Sha­nen­don Cartwright, as to when the Cli­co pol­i­cy­hold­ers would be paid, said “I’m ad­vised that the liq­uida­tor is propos­ing to de­clare pay­ments short­ly.

“Where we are, and what gov­ern­ment has paid out, the gov­ern­ment would be en­ti­tled to re­ceive their share of what’s been paid back to the liq­uida­tor and then en­sur­ing that the pol­i­cy own­ers get what is due to them. So that’s why know­ing that the funds are avail­able from the right­ful source, there was no need for us to bud­get for it,” Davis told leg­is­la­tors.

But Cartwright asked why the gov­ern­ment pay the Cli­co pol­i­cy­hold­ers now and then re­ceive the funds from the liq­uida­tor, who has promised a pay­ment, would have di­rect­ed Bak­er Tilly (Gomez) to ac­cept, but there is still the is­sue of when that mon­ey will be avail­able. We don’t know when that mon­ey is com­ing, so why in the mean­time doesn’t the gov­ern­ment just stand in the gap?

Cartwright said that each of the pol­i­cy­hold­ers would have ex­e­cut­ed an as­sign­ment of their div­i­dends to the gov­ern­ment “so that when the monies come in, the gov­ern­ment would be re­paid any­way.

“So why not pay the pol­i­cy­hold­ers in the mean­time, par­tic­u­lar­ly that the gov­ern­ment is go­ing to get the mon­ey, be­cause right now the pol­i­cy­hold­ers, about 10,000 of them, feel as though the gov­ern­ment has aban­doned them on this is­sue.”