Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert, yes­ter­day de­clared that, based on the da­ta col­lect­ed so far, the NIF2 $400 mil­lion five-year bond is­sue, which was of­fered to the pub­lic at an in­ter­est rate of 4.5 per cent per year, shows that the fixed-in­come in­vest­ment is a tremen­dous suc­cess.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, the min­is­ter said NIF2, ap­pli­ca­tions for which closed last Fri­day, was de­signed to pro­vide all cit­i­zens with a safe and high val­ue in­vest­ment in­stru­ment, us­ing the peo­ple’s as­sets ac­quired from Cli­co.

As of Wednes­day, the to­tal ap­pli­ca­tions for the $400 mil­lion avail­able in NIF2 bonds had crossed $1 bil­lion, in­clud­ing over $700 mil­lion in ap­pli­ca­tions from a to­tal of 3,644 in­di­vid­ual in­vestors, with more ap­pli­ca­tions to be tal­lied yes­ter­day, said Im­bert.

Up to yes­ter­day, he said, NIF2 was over­sub­scribed by 160 per cent and when the fi­nal tal­ly is done, the over­sub­scrip­tion may cross 170 per cent.

“The suc­cess of NIF2 is an over­whelm­ing vote of con­fi­dence in the Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund and by ex­ten­sion a vote of con­fi­dence in the Gov­ern­ment’s man­age­ment of the as­sets ac­quired by the Gov­ern­ment in re­turn for the mon­ey spent in the Cli­co bailout,” Im­bert said.

Im­bert, who as Cor­po­ra­tion Sole con­trols State as­sets, point­ed out that since the in­cep­tion of NIF in Au­gust 2018, it has paid all se­mi-an­nu­al in­ter­est due on all NIF bonds on time and al­so paid bond­hold­ers in full for the first five-year Se­ries A NIF bonds when they ma­tured in Au­gust last year. Gov­ern­ment is­sued a $1.2 bil­lion, 17-year bond pay­ing an an­nu­al in­ter­est rate of 7.10 per cent in Ju­ly 2023 to re­pay the prin­ci­pal on the Se­ries A bond.

Last Fri­day, the Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund Hold­ing Com­pa­ny (NIF) an­nounced that on that date, it made its 11th in­ter­est pay­ment dis­tri­b­u­tion of $85.2 mil­lion to bond­hold­ers of the Se­ries B and Se­ries C (the 12 year and 20-year bonds) of the NIF1 Bond.

Since its es­tab­lish­ment in mid-2018, NIF has made to­tal in­ter­est dis­tri­b­u­tions of $1.207 bil­lion to its bond­hold­ers, ac­cord­ing to the NIF Hold­ing Com­pa­ny.

The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance ex­plained that af­ter the wind­ing up in 2023 of the Cli­co In­vest­ment Fund (CIF), which was backed by 25 per cent of the is­sued shares in Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (RFHL), NIF ac­quired a fur­ther 3.9 per cent in Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (RFHL), tak­ing its share­hold­ing to 29.9 per cent of the bank hold­ing com­pa­ny. These ad­di­tion­al shares in RFHL were the ba­sis for NIF2.

“It is note­wor­thy that when NIF bonds were first is­sued in 2018, they were un­jus­ti­fi­ably de­scribed by the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion as a “Ponzi scheme” and the Op­po­si­tion went so far as to urge its sup­port­ers not to in­vest in NIF1. That at­tempt to dam­age NIF1 failed, since that first bond is­sue was al­so over­sub­scribed,” said Im­bert.

“Now that ex­pe­ri­ence has demon­strat­ed that NIF1 was a great in­vest­ment, pro­vid­ing a re­turn that was three times the typ­i­cal de­posit rate at com­mer­cial banks, NIF2, with a sim­i­lar ex­treme­ly at­trac­tive in­ter­est rate for in­di­vid­ual in­vestors, has been a gal­lop­ing suc­cess,” he added.

Im­bert al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed all those in­volved in NIF2, and he thanked the pub­lic for its con­tin­ued con­fi­dence in the man­age­ment of the Trinidad and To­ba­go econ­o­my.