Mar 2015 Financial News

Scotia appoints new chairman

Mar 04, 2015

Bank of Nova Scotia executive Brendan King has been appointed Scotiabank Trinidad and Tobago’s new chairman.

His appointment and election as a new director came yesterday during the bank’s 45th annual meeting of shareholders at the Hyatt Regency (Trinidad) hotel in Port of Spain.

King, who is also senior vice-president and region head, International Banking, Bank of Nova Scotia in Canada, replaces former chairman Sylvia Chrominska.

King is responsible for Scotiabank’s personal, commercial, wealth management and insurance operations in the Caribbean, Central America, Uruguay and Thailand.

In addition, he has responsibility for retail and small business collections activities throughout the International Banking division, Scotiabank said.

During yesterday’s meeting, shareholders passed a resolution to keep directors George Janoura, Wendy-Fae Thompson, Lisa MacKenzie, Christopher Mack, Roxane De Freitas, Bruce Bowen and the bank’s managing director Anya Schnoor on the board.

They also elected another new director- Paul Baroni. While the bank was praised by most shareholders for its profitability over the years, a concern was raised about why shareholders should support a motion for an increase in aggregate compensation for directors from $1.6 million to no more than $3 million, effective January 1 this year.

But Chrominska explained that according to a survey, Scotiabank’s directors were paid 50 per cent below what their peers receive in the local banking sector.

“In order to be able to attract the kind and the quality of directors with the skills and knowledge that help manage this bank, in the interest of shareholders, we need to increase those fees,” she said.

“I think it is also important to note that we’ve been mandated by the Central Bank to add audit committees to our subsidiary boards so that increases the number of directors, so that is the need for increasing the fees.”

The resolution for the increase was eventually passed.

...Profits at $135 million

In its financial results for the period ended January 31, Scotiabank recorded net income after tax of $135 million. 

Managing director Schnoor said while this was a bit lower than last year’s results the bank had an excellent first quarter.

“Our first quarter performance (this year) was mostly attributable to an increase in loan loss provisions,” she said.

“The economic environment also creates a little bit of uncertainty and I think we decided in the first quarter to be a little bit conservative with our loan loss provisioning and based on the growth in our loan book, compared to year over year, we had an increase in our loan loss provisions for the first quarter. That being said we had an excellent first quarter. Loans continue to grow and for the first time in a long time our net interest income has grown year over year and that’s a positive sign and really shows the growth in our core business,” Schnoor added.

“Our return on assets remain strong at 2.5 per cent and our productivity ratio was again best in class at 46 per cent,” she said.

Source:
By Leah Sorias
Trinidad Express
Wednesday March 4, 2015

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/business/Scotia-appoints-new-chairman--294923741.html