(Trinidad Express) Lawrence Duprey is the opposite of his uncle Cyril Duprey.
This was stated on Friday 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.
