Ex­ec­u­tive chair of Cli­co, Claire Gomez-Miller, said yes­ter­day the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny’s sale of 36.63 per cent of Methanol Hold­ings In­ter­na­tion­al Ltd (MHIL) to the T&T Gov­ern­ment is not com­plete be­cause the share reg­is­ter has not been up­dat­ed.

Gomez-Miller was re­spond­ing to What­sApp ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing a state­ment on the is­sue of the sale of the MHIL shares by Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Bri­an Man­ning, in the Sen­ate on Tues­day.

In re­sponse to a mo­tion on the ad­journ­ment by Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark, Man­ning told the Sen­ate that the Gov­ern­ment ac­cept­ed an of­fer to pur­chase 19.63 per cent of Cli­co’s share­hold­ing in MHIL on Jan­u­ary 9, 2023.

He said that on Feb­ru­ary 21, whol­ly state-owned Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund Hold­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd (NIF) ac­cept­ed an of­fer from Cli­co to pur­chase 17 per cent of Cli­co’s shares in MHIL.

Cli­co cur­rent­ly holds 56.53 per cent of MHIL, but is in the process of sell­ing 36.63 per cent of the methanol pro­duc­er, in or­der to be­come com­pli­ant with the In­sur­ance Act 2018. That act stip­u­lates that in­sur­ance com­pa­nies in T&T can­not hold more than 20 per cent of any en­ti­ty.

In his state­ment in the Sen­ate, Man­ning said: “To date, Cli­co has signed share ac­qui­si­tion agree­ments and share trans­fer forms with the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of T&T and NIF. But the share reg­is­ter of MHIL has not yet been amend­ed to re­flect the trans­fers.”

Asked yes­ter­day whether the sale trans­ac­tion could be com­plet­ed if the share reg­is­ter is not up­dat­ed, Gomez-Miller said: “All Gov­ern­ment and NIF agree­ments and doc­u­ments have been signed and sent to MHIL for ex­e­cu­tion.

“The trans­ac­tion can on­ly be com­plet­ed when the MHIL share reg­is­ter shows the ti­tle has been legal­ly changed from Cli­co to Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of T&T and NIF.

“NIF can­not recog­nise the ac­qui­si­tion in its fi­nan­cials un­til they have ti­tle to the shares.”

Gomez-Miller said NIF is un­able to recog­nise the ac­qui­si­tion of 17 per cent of MHIL in its fi­nan­cials be­cause it was point­ed out to her that NIF made no men­tion of the ac­qui­si­tion of the MHIL shares in its 2022 an­nu­al re­port, which was pub­lished on Tues­day.

In the an­nu­al re­port’s state­ment of events af­ter the re­port­ing date, NIF said: “The com­pa­ny eval­u­at­ed all events that oc­curred from Jan­u­ary 1, 2023, through Feb­ru­ary 28, 2023, the date the fi­nan­cial state­ments were avail­able to be is­sued. Dur­ing the pe­ri­od, the com­pa­ny did not have any sub­se­quent events re­quir­ing recog­ni­tion or dis­clo­sure in the fi­nan­cial state­ments.”

If the pur­chase of 17 per cent of the shares in MHIL by NIF had been com­plet­ed on Feb­ru­ary 21, 2023, the lo­cal in­vest­ment hold­ing com­pa­ny for the Gov­ern­ment would have an­nounced the trans­ac­tion in the sub­se­quent events sec­tion of its 2022 an­nu­al re­port.

Cli­co’s state­ment on sub­se­quent events not­ed: “To en­sure com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments Cli­co has em­barked on the process to sell the por­tion of its MHIL shares out­side reg­u­la­tions.”

Cli­co would have been oblig­ed to an­nounce the sale of the MHIL shares in its state­ment of events af­ter re­port­ing pe­ri­od if the trans­ac­tions had been com­plet­ed.

Gomez-Miller said the sale of the 36.63 per cent stake in MHIL to the Gov­ern­ment and to 100 per cent state-owned NIF would be “more than enough” to pay off Cli­co’s debt to the Gov­ern­ment.

Asked whether NIF can be de­fined as a non-com­pet­ing THIRD PAR­TY, giv­en the fact thatit is 100 per cent owned by the State, Gomez-Miller said yes NIF can be de­fined as a non-com­pet­ing THIRD PAR­TY.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, a spokesper­son for Pro­man said: “Con­sol­i­dat­ed En­er­gy Ltd is sur­prised by the Min­is­ter’s re­marks, but does not wish to pro­vide any fur­ther com­ments.”

Switzer­land-based Pro­man–the largest in­vestor on the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate–is the own­er of Con­sol­i­dat­ed En­er­gy Ltd, which holds Pro­man’s shares in MHIL.

MHIL is an in­vest­ment hold­ing com­pa­ny for shares owned by Cli­co and Pro­man in the methanol pro­duc­er, which is based in the Mid­dle East­ern coun­try of Oman.