(Trinidad Guardian) Angos-tura Holdings, the CL Financial subsidiary, has declared a loss of TT$1.28 billion for 2008 and is unable to produce its audited results for 2009.

While the company reported an unaudited net profit of TT$101.3 million for the first half of 2010, close to half of that is due to foreign currency gains. The company submitted its audited results for 2008—described by a stock market analyst as being the largest loss in the history of the T&T Stock Exchange—and its unaudited results for the first half of 2010 to the T&T Stock Exchange after 4 pm on Friday last. In reporting its first financial results of any kind since November 2008, Angostura stated that its consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2008, were “materially impacted by post-year-end events involving CL Financial.”

The “precarious” financial position of its parent “impaired the collectability of circa TT$1.185 billion in receivables from the CL Financial Group,” the company said. The rum and bitters producer stated in its report that recognising these provisions resulted in a net loss of TT$1.287 billion as well as accummulated losses of TT$307 million and negative shareholders’ equity of $121 million. The company reported that because of its loss in 2008, it was not in a position to declare any dividends for that year. “These well documented financial challenges which confronted CL Financial placed Angostura Holdings in an extremely difficult position,” according to the written report which accompanied the company’s results, which was signed by the vice chairman of Angostura.