For­mer health min­is­ter and mi­nor­i­ty share­hold­er at a pri­vate hos­pi­tal Dr Fuad Khan says crick­et leg­end Bri­an Lara should not be both­ered if he was not in­formed, be­fore hand, about Med­corp Ltd re­cent­ly launch­ing a $16.8 mil­lion ini­tial pub­lic of­fer­ing over the can­cer treat­ment cen­ter bear­ing his name.

The crick­et leg­end’s le­gal team sent a for­mal let­ter re­quest­ing an­swers about the IPO. 

Sources close to the sit­u­a­tion told Guardian Me­dia that Lara wants his name re­moved from the can­cer treat­ment cen­tre man­aged by Med­corp. 

A vis­it by Guardian Me­dia to Good Health Med­ical Cen­tre along Mar­aval Park­way, St James, yes­ter­day—where the Bri­an Lara Can­cer Treat­ment Cen­tre is lo­cat­ed—found that the sig­nage was not bear­ing the crick­eter’s name. 

How­ev­er, on Med­corp’s web­site, it is still called the Bri­an Lara Can­cer Treat­ment Cen­tre. 

Khan, a con­sul­tant urol­o­gist, ex­plained that Lara is not a share­hold­er, so it’s not manda­to­ry to alert him. 

“So this is no busi­ness of his to be told about the IPO. That’s the di­rec­tors and share­hold­ers who vot­ed to do the IPO. The share­hold­ers can’t do any­thing be­cause they put di­rec­tors on board, to do their busi­ness. When you put di­rec­tors on board to do your busi­ness, they could run away from the com­pa­ny, and you can’t do any­thing, as is hap­pen­ing to a cou­ple of oth­er pri­vate in­sti­tu­tions in Trinidad,” Khan lament­ed. 

Lara re­vealed on Sat­ur­day that he on­ly re­cent­ly be­came aware of the IPO. Re­spond­ing cau­tious­ly, he said, “My le­gal team sent a let­ter to the board of di­rec­tors, and that is all I have to say about the mat­ter. I think we just have to wait for an an­swer from them.” 

Asked if he wished to have his name re­moved, Lara replied, “No, that is not the case. It’s a sit­u­a­tion where we sent them a let­ter, and they have to re­spond. Un­til then, I pre­fer to have no com­ment. We wait for their re­sponse.” 

Deputy Chair­man of Med­corp Dr Di­nesh Mor said he was un­aware of any le­gal cor­re­spon­dence but not­ed that the com­pa­ny’s lawyers and sec­re­tary would han­dle such mat­ters. 

How­ev­er, Mor added, “There were ru­mours that Lara want­ed his name re­moved from the cen­tre, but I have not seen the proof of the le­gal let­ter.” 

IPO a good move 

As it per­tains to the pri­vate health­care com­pa­ny en­ter­ing in­to an IPO Khan claimed that the coun­try was in a cash trap cri­sis and in­come has dropped at pri­vate hos­pi­tals across the coun­try, so some in­vestors would want to get their mon­ey out, and the best way is to en­gage. 

“Even in­sur­ance com­pa­nies are no longer pay­ing out as fast as they used to.  It takes about three to five months to get your claims back. So, there is a cash prob­lem. Med­corp has seen that and maybe they have found a good way to raise funds in the pub­lic do­main, go on the T&T Stock Ex­change, which an IPO could do, and then the ini­tial in­vestors will get back their mon­ey with in­ter­est and they could still main­tain con­trol if they buy enough shares,” he de­tailed. 

Med­corp op­er­ates St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre. 

Last month, Med­corp launched an IPO of­fer­ing 350,000 or­di­nary shares at $48 each.