The Clico Policyholders Group (CPG) yesterday called on the Minister of Finance and Corporation Sole, Colm Imbert to honour the residual balances owed to policyholders of the insurance company, following his admission in the Senate on Monday that Clico completed repaying its debt to the Government last year.
In the Senate on Monday, Opposition Senator Wade Mark posed the question, “Can the minister provide the details and status of the sale of Clico’s 56.53 per cent shareholding in MHIL to the Proman Group in late December, 2023?”
In response the Finance Minister said, “The information and answer to this question has been in the public domain for almost one year, and the matter has already been extensively addressed inside and outside of the Parliament. It is therefore curious that Senator Mark continues to beat this dead horse. The facts already in the public domain are as follows—as of April 2023, Clico’s remaining liability to the government for the Clico bailout was $1 billion.
“In addition, Clico had a statutory obligation under the Insurance Act 2018 to reduce its interest in MHIL to less than 20 per cent.
“In July of 2023 the other shareholder in MHIL, Consolidated Energy, approached Clico to acquire the full 56.53 per cent of Clico’s interest in MHIL. A sale price of US$337 million for the shares was agreed based on a valuation done by an independent and reputable global valuation consultant, Charles Rivers Associates, plus an additional US$10 million as Clico’s share of dividends for 2023.
“All issues were thus satisfactorily addressed: Clico’s satisfaction of its obligation under the Insurance Act 2018, with respect to its shareholding in MHIL being reduced to less than 20 per cent; and Clico’s obligation to repay the government the $1 billion that was still owed in 2023.”
In a news release yesterday, the CPG said given what Imbert said in the Senate, it "is calling on the goodly minister to immediately release all policies assigned to it (GORTT) by the assenting EFPA policyholders, and for the management of Clico to discharge its fiduciary responsibility owed to these policyholders by commencing payment of the residual balances contractually due to them forthwith."
The group, which is headed by shareholder activist, Peter Permell, said it is noteworthy that the CPG has waited patiently over the many years since 2012 for this crucial confirmation before making this call.
The group said it first wanted to ensure that Clico was not only in the black as evinced by its 2023 audited financials which disclose $3.18 billion in accumulated surplus and $2.30 billion in net profit but more importantly that taxpayers got back every cent of the billions of dollars advanced to Clico.
"Accordingly, now that this day has finally arrived, there can be no good reason or excuse why Clico’s board of directors and management should either delay or continue to remain silent on when the relevant payments will be made to these policyholders," said CPG.
The group noted that in the event that Clico fails to make a public statement or communicate with policyholders by next week, it will be calling on each of the 15,000 plus assenting policyholders to write to the insurance company via email and copy the CPG at clico.policyholders@gmail.com to demand payment of their hard-earned money.
