While CLF shareholder representatives are mum about the plan they have offered Government to repay the 2009 bailout debt, part of the proposal includes getting back various companies from Angostura Holdings Ltd to Home Construction Ltd.
Shareholders’ representative, Carlton Reis, last weekend confirmed shareholders had obtained all the funds needed to repay the bailout debt incurred after the 2009 collapse of the insurance giant. He said they’re ready to repay Government, regain CLF companies and “roll again.”
This after two visits to T&T by CL majority shareholder, Lawrence Duprey, between last month and last week. He held talks with shareholders last week, when the group also met foreign financial advisers to finalise funding for the repayment effort.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert last weekend also confirmed CLF shareholders had offered to repurchase the companies which the ministry and the Central Bank “are looking at carefully.”
Yesterday, however, Reis said shareholders would not publicly share details of the 150-day repayment plan due to the ongoing process with Government. He said details were “strictly confidential” but said it was based on a proposed plan sent to Imbert in April and which had been reported exclusively in the T&T Guardian in July.
In April, shareholders offered Imbert a plan to consider to deal with Clico’s residual debt to Government. That residual-debt plan envisaged CL Financial would retain control of Angostura Holdings Limited; Home Construction Limited; CL Marine Limited; Colfire Limited; Caribbean Petrochemical Marketing Limited and CL World Brands Limited.
USL also asked that several points on CLF management be incorporated into the next extension of the shareholders’ agreement. Shareholders had estimated then that the cost of the shares held by Clico in Angostura, CL World Brands and HCL were valued at approximately $1.7 billion.
The USL had said that the full claim of the debt by Government then, approximately $23.5 billion, needed to be verified and accepted by CLF and the shareholders and agreed to by Government. Last weekend, Reis had estimated the debt to be about $15 billion by now, excluding funding from the sale of the Methanol Company shares.
When T&T Guardian spoke to Imbert on the offer last weekend, he did not give a current figure for the Clico debt. Asked against yesterday, Imbert was just as resolute in not giving it up.
On the shareholders’ offer, Imbert said: “These discussions are sensitive and complex and negotiations of this nature should not be conducted in the newspapers.”
Imbert said further discussions would be held “in due course on the details, quantum and the method of repayment before a decision can be made.
“Further, if and/or when the MOF forms the view that the offer is realistic, a submission will be made to Cabinet, which is the ultimate decision-maker. That’s all I am prepared to say at this time,” he added.