The National Investment Fund Holding Company (NIF) recorded investee companies’ dividend income of $324.1 million for the financial year ended December 31, 2023.
NIF chair Jennifer Lutchman, said this represented an increase by $20.8 million or 6.9 per cent from the $303.3 million earned in the prior year.
The NIF bond was first issued in 2018 in three tranches—five years, 12 years and 20 years—had a face value of $4 billion, offered fixed-rate returns, and was backed by five assets worth about $8 billion.
These assets included the 100 per cent state-owned electricity generation company, TGU, and assets acquired from Clico and Clico Investment Bank (in liquidation) as a result of the bailout of the CL Financial group in 2009.
In the 2019 budget presentation Finance Minister Imbert confirmed the NIF bond issuance received 8,103 applications valued at $7.349 billion.
In NIF’s annual report for the year ended December 31 2023, which was published on the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange on Wednesday, Lutchman said, “The performance of the investee companies remain healthy and the dividend inflows received in 2023 exemplify the robust portfolio collated in 2018.”
She broke down the dividend payments in the report as follows:
“a) Republic Financial Holding Ltd (RFHL) paid out overall dividends of $5.20 per share which was an increase of 15.5 per cent over the 2022 dividends of $4.50 per share;
b) Angostura Holdings Limited paid dividends of $0.35 per share, matching its payout in 2022;
c) Trinidad Generation Unlimited of $0.31 per share, matching 2022;
d) One Caribbean Media paid out $0.20 per share compared with $0.17 per share received during 2022; and
e) West Indian Tobacco distributed $0.78 per share in 2023 compared with $1.42 during 2022.”
Lutchman said, “We ended the year with a portfolio of $8.66 billion which reflected an increase of $0.6 billion, since our establishment in mid-2018. The portfolio consists of shares from the five companies:
• RFHL with 29.95 per cent shareholding, which accounted for 66 per cent of the portfolio;
• Trinidad Generation Unlimited with 100 per cent comprising 17 per cent of the portfolio.
• Angostura Holdings Ltd with 29.9 per cent, comprising 15 of the portfolio;
• West Indian Tobacco Company with 5.4 per cent comprising 1 per cent of the portfolio; and
• One Caribbean Media Limited with 23 per cent comprising one per cent of the portfolio.
In delivering the 2020 budget, on October 7, 2019, Imbert introduced the notion of a NIF 2.
“Barring unforeseen circumstances, I propose to introduce in fiscal 2020 a second National Investment Fund Bond Issue which will be based, among other things, on the proceeds from the sale of certain shares held by Clico that are currently valued at $2.6 billion.
“We will maintain the current ratio of two to one relating to the assets and the corporate bonds issued by the first National Investment Fund.”
In January, the Finance Ministry explained that in the wake of the winding up in 2023 of the Clico Investment Fund (CIF), which was backed by 25 per cent of the issued shares in RFHL, NIF acquired 6,546,417 RFHL shares (representing approximately four per cent of the bank’s share from the Government on November 20 2023. These additional shares in RFHL were the basis for NIF2.
In the annual report, Lutchman also hailed the positive public response to the NIF2 bond which was launched earlier this year.
She said, “NIF is also pleased to advise that its NIF2 Bond which was launched on January 22 2024 for $400 million at 4.5 per cent with a term of five years was oversubscribed by 267 per cent when it closed on February 9 2024.”