The NCB Fi­nan­cial Group (NCBFG)–the Ja­maican fi­nan­cial ser­vices com­pa­ny at the cen­tre of an ex­change of words be­tween politi­cians in T&T—on Wednes­day de­clared net prof­it of J$13.72 bil­lion (US$88.85 mil­lion) for the nine months end­ed June 30, 2023. That is a de­cline of 47 per cent com­pared with the J$25.87 bil­lion (US$168.66 mil­lion) the com­pa­ny re­port­ed for the same pe­ri­od in 2022.

NCBFG record­ed net op­er­at­ing rev­enues of J$96.80 bil­lion (US$626.67 mil­lion) for the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023, which was a de­cline of 8.3 per cent, com­pared with the J$105.61 bil­lion (US$688.37 mil­lion) the com­pa­ny gen­er­at­ed for the pri­or-year pe­ri­od.

At a board meet­ing on Wednes­day, NCBFG’s di­rec­tors de­cid­ed not to pay an in­ter­im div­i­dend, as “con­serv­ing cap­i­tal is pru­dent to en­sure the or­gan­i­sa­tion is most re­silient in a world of change.” In an in­ter­view with the Ja­maica Ob­serv­er last month, NCBFG’s ex­ec­u­tive chair­man, Michael Lee-Chin said he was “def­i­nite­ly not hap­py” that the group had not paid a div­i­dend since May 2021.

Speak­ing at an NCBFG in­vestor fo­rum in Kingston yes­ter­day, Lee-Chin said the group is work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly “to make sure div­i­dends re­sume by the end of this year.” He said one of the ways the group in­tends to do this is by re­duc­ing ex­pen­di­ture through ef­fi­cien­cy im­prove­ments. He said in the last two-and-a-half weeks, NCBFG had iden­ti­fied and en­act­ed an­nu­al cost sav­ings of be­tween J$6B and J$8B (be­tween US$39M and US$52 mil­lion).

For the nine-month pe­ri­od, NCBFG re­port­ed net rev­enues from in­sur­ance ac­tiv­i­ties of J$11.92 bil­lion (US$77.16 mil­lion), a 53 per cent de­cline com­pared with the J$25.47 bil­lion (US$166 mil­lion) for the same pe­ri­od in 2022.

NCBFG’s prin­ci­pal in­sur­ance sub­sidiary is Guardian Hold­ings Ltd (GHL), the re­gion­al in­sur­ance com­pa­ny that is head­quar­tered in West­moor­ings, Trinidad.

For the six months end­ed June 30, 2023, GHL de­clared af­ter-tax prof­it of TT$253.69 mil­lion, a 95 per cent in­crease over the prof­it for the same pe­ri­od in 2022.

In a speech in Ch­agua­nas on Au­gust 1, T&T’s Op­po­si­tion Leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, raised the pos­si­bil­i­ty that GHL could suf­fer the same fate as CLI­CO, which col­lapsed in Jan­u­ary 2009.

“I won­der if you re­mem­ber what hap­pened when Cli­co failed. We had the mas­sive fail­ure of Cli­co and all of the in­sur­ance poli­cies and in­vest­ments peo­ple had made. We can­not sit idly by and let an­oth­er Cli­co hap­pen ...” said Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence on Wednes­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter, Colm Im­bert, dis­missed as “ar­rant non­sense” Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claim of a pos­si­ble col­lapse of GHL, which he said is in “ex­cel­lent shape.”