By Sue-Ann Wayow
OPPOSITION Senator Wade Mark is “delusional” to suggest that it was a criminal act for First Citizens Bank (FCB) to allegedly loan Cornerstone Financial Holdings Limited US$45 million.
This was the response of Finance Minister Colm Imbert in response to statements made by Mark in the Senate on Wednesday.
In a release on Thursday, Imbert said, “Opposition Senator Wade Mark came to the Senate and made a frenzied rant about an alleged loan allegedly made by First Citizens Bank (FCB) to a company called Cornerstone Financial Holdings Limited (Cornerstone) and demanded an immediate investigation into this matter.
“In his irresponsible outburst, which was obviously intended to harm the reputation of both companies, Senator Mark alleged, without a shred of evidence, other than regurgitating unfounded insinuations in the newspapers, that FCB had invested hundreds of millions of TT dollars in what he described as an unknown over-leveraged fly-by-night company, involved in a Ponzi scheme.
“Senator Mark went further to claim that FCB’s investment in Cornerstone was a criminal act.”
Imbert said a simple internet search will reveal that Cornerstone was the majority shareholder of Barita Investments Limited – a 45-year-old financial company that is listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange.
He said Barita’s publicly available 2021 Annual Report indicated that at the end of 2021, Barita had assets of J$90 billion or US$600 million; and as of July 2022 Barita is one of the top five largest companies listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) with a market capitalisation of J$106 billion or US$709 million.
Imbert said, “It is also a matter of public record, published in Barita’s 2021 Annual Report, that Cornerstone owns 74% of Barita, which asset is currently valued at US$525 million.”
He said Cornerstone was hardly a fly-by-night company but in a “reckless Senator Mark gave the wholly false impression that Cornerstone was a shell company with little or no assets and he attempted to convince his listeners that FCB was about to lose its entire investment in Cornerstone and Barita.
Imbert said that FCB’s 7.4% shareholding in Barita was currently worth J$7.91 billion or US$52.73 million (TT$358 million).
He said FCB paid J$5.85 billion for these shares and has thus made a profit of J$2.06 billion or US$13.7 million (TT$93million) on the purchase of Barita shares, a return of 35% on its investment.
Thus far, therefore, the Barita investment has paid handsome dividends for FCB, Imbert said.
The Finance Minister said, “Further, with Cornerstone’s 74% shareholding in Barita being worth US$525 million, if FCB has lent Cornerstone US$45 million, it would have lent less than 10% of the value of Cornerstone’s shareholding in Barita.
“This cannot by any stretch of the imagination, even hypothetically, be described as a ‘criminal act.’
“Only a delusional person would resort to such empty rhetoric.”
Imbert said FCB has made a capital gain of over TT$90 million through its investment in Barita, which is a well-established Jamaican financial company that has been operating in Jamaica since 1977.
He said, “The questions that must be asked, therefore, are, why is Senator Mark so interested in trying to undermine FCB’s efforts to grow and develop in the Region and why is he spreading such false and malicious information about another well-established Caribbean company?”
