PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said yes­ter­day that Cli­co ad­dressed its oblig­a­tion to re­pay its re­main­ing li­a­bil­i­ty of $1 bil­lion to the Gov­ern­ment in 2023, by sell­ing all of its share­hold­ing in Methanol Hold­ings In­ter­na­tion­al Ltd (MHIL) .

Cli­co re­ceived a multi­bil­lion dol­lar bailout in 2009, which even­tu­al­ly to­talled over $18 bil­lion.

In the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, 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."

The op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor then fol­lowed up his ques­tion with an in­quiry, "When did the Gov­ern­ment re­ceive the out­stand­ing $1 bil­lion owed by Cli­co to the tax­pay­ers of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go to set­tle its fi­nal out­stand­ing debt oblig­a­tions to the cit­i­zen­ry?"

To which the Min­is­ter replied, "In 2023."

When the op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor asked for a spe­cif­ic month that the debt was set­tled, Min­is­ter Im­bert re­spond­ed, "When I come to this place, I have to ex­pect strange ques­tions from Sen­a­tor Mark. That was not part of the ques­tion. All Sen­a­tor Mark com­plained about was the sale of MHIL shares by Cli­co. He said noth­ing about any debt owed by Cli­co to the gov­ern­ment. Then it is there­fore ab­surd to ex­pect you to walk with that date."

On De­cem­ber 27, 2023 the Trinidad Guardian re­port­ed that Cli­co sold its en­tire 56.53 per cent stake in MHIL, which is lo­cat­ed in Oman, to the Switzer­land-based Pro­man Group on De­cem­ber 22, 2023 for the sum of US$347 mil­lion ($2.35 bil­lion).

In its 2023 au­dit­ed fi­nan­cials, Cli­co re­port­ed that the sale of the sub­sidiary MHIL was com­plet­ed on De­cem­ber 22, 2023. Part­ly as a re­sult of the sale of MHIL, Cli­co re­port­ed $3.18 bil­lion in ac­cum­mu­lat­ed sur­plus as at De­cem­ber 31, 2023. The 2023 fi­nan­cials al­so dis­close that the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny record­ed $2.30 bil­lion in prof­it at­trib­ut­able to the own­ers of the com­pa­ny. Cli­co is 49 per cent owned by Cor­po­ra­tion Sole, who holds as­sets on be­half of the ppou­la­tion. Its oth­er ma­jor share­hold­er is CL Fi­nan­cial, which is in liq­ui­da­tion, with 51 per cent.