(Trinidad Guardian) More than 15 years after the Central Bank assumed control of Clico, the insurance company declared a dividend of $1 billion, which will go to its main shareholders, its parent company CL Financial with 50.85 per cent and Corporation Sole with 49 per cent.
The dividend, declared by Clico on September 23, is the first time the company has made such a payment to its shareholders, sources close to the company told the Sunday Business Guardian on Friday night.
The news of the Clico dividend is contained in the 13th report of the joint liquidators of CL Financial, who are employees of the British Virgin Islands office of the professional services firm, Grant Thornton. Minister of Finance applied to the High Court in 2017 to have CL Financial wound up and a liquidator appointed.
In the report, the joint liquidators said, “The portion of this dividend attributable to CL Financial’s 50.85 per cent shareholding in Clico will be disbursed to CL Financial between October 2024 and December 31, 2024.”
The report states that CL Financial expects to receive $507 million from the Clico dividend, but 50.85 per cent of $1 billion is $508.5 million.
Although the joint liquidators do not outline the money going to Clico’s other main shareholder, Corporation Sole is expected to receive about $490 million from the $1 billion dividend.
Clico will pay the $1 billion dividend from its accumulated surplus, which totalled $3.18 billion as at December 31, 2023.
Most of the insurance company’s accumulated surplus came from the sale on December 22, 2023, of its 56.53 per cent shareholding in Methanol Holdings International Ltd (MHIL) to Consolidated Energy Limited (CEL), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Switzerland-based Proman Group, which is the single largest tenant on the Point Lisas Industrial Estate.
Clico’s 2023 audited financial statement states, “Proceeds of the sale of subsidiary, net of cash disposed and direct cost was $1.56 billion. By this transaction Clico effectively relinquished control of MHIL and the group recognised a gain of $1.99 billion on the sale.”
The gain on the sale of the disposal of MHIL resulted in Clico’s after-tax profit totalling $2.30 billion in its financial year ended December 30, 2023.
In his September 30, 2024 budget statement, Minister of Finance Colm Imbert, said the sale of the Government’s 49 per cent stake in Clico was one of the “special projects” the Government intended to embark on in the 2025 fiscal year.
“Clico is no longer considered to be of strategic importance to the Government and its divestment will earn several billion dollars in revenue for the Government, to see us through the financial difficulties of the next few years,” Imbert told the Parliament in his five-hour-and-43 minute budget presentation.
In their report, the joint liquidators said they are “still taking steps to consider the sale of the Company’s majority interest in Clico.
“As part of the preparation for the sale of the CL Financial’s Clico shares, the joint liquidators have been reviewing aspects of the Clico portfolio, while they await the determination of the agreement that had previously been entered into when Clico was under the control of the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago.” No details of the agreement were provided in the joint liquidators’ report.
In the report, which is dated October 16 and was stamped by the High Court on October 17, the joint liquidators say the document “specifically comments on our activities and findings in the period from 20 October 2023 to the date of this report. For the purposes of this report, all accounting information will be presented from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024.”
