(Trinidad Express) Lawrence Duprey is the opposite of his uncle Cyril Duprey.
This was stated yesterday by Mervyn Assam, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary with responsibility for trade and investment, as he took the witness stand at the Commission of Enquiry into the collapse of CL Financial and the Hindu Credit Union (HCU) yesterday.
Cyril Duprey founded the first locally-owned insurance company, Colonial Life Insurance Co (CLICO), in 1936.
Assam said he knew Cyril Duprey “quite well” because CLICO was a shareholder of a multinational corporation that was headquartered in Indiana in the United States.
“As CLICO was a small shareholder in the company in which I was managing director, I frequently interacted with Mr Cyril Duprey. I came to know him very well over the years through my interaction with him,” Assam said.
“Mr Cyril Duprey was the essence of frugality, the essence of conservatism and the essence of prudence. He was most risk averse. He grew the business over the years and never diversified out of the insurance,” Assam said.
Following Cyril’s death in 1988, his nephew Lawrence inherited CLICO, Assam said.
“When Cyril died and the business was inherited by Lawrence Duprey he inherited a virtual cash cow,” Assam said yesterday.
Lawrence Duprey transformed CLICO to the conglomerate CL Financial, Assam said.
“Lawrence Duprey was the opposite of his uncle Cyril. He is very entrepreneurial and not at all risk averse. He has a reputation of being able to see an opportunity and go after it. He always saw things on a big scale and had the idea that was how companies in Europe, United States and Canada were able to develop from small to medium to large to become transnational companies,” Assam said.
Lawrence diversified the group into banking by the establishment of CLICO Investment Bank (CIB), Assam said.
Lawrence approached Assam to establish CIB. The company was started on April 1 1990.
“It was quite coincidental it was formed on All Fools Day,” Assam said.
On July 27, 1990, the day of the attempted coup, Assam said he visited the Red House to receive a license for CIB from former finance minister Selby Wilson and ended up being a hostage for six days.
“The CIB was founded on a reputation of integrity,” Assam said.
Assam said he resigned from CIB in 1995 after a tiff with Lawrence over the dismissal of an employee named Mala Gandhi and a request by Basdeo Panday for him to become a candidate in the United National Congress (UNC) in the 1995 general election.
Assam returned as the executive chairman of CIB in 2008 following the resignation of Andre Monteil from the post.
