Jun 2008 Financial News

Sagicor sticking with agriculture

Jun 16, 2008

THERE WILL BE NO MAJOR housing development on lands owned by Barbados Farms Limited (BFL) in the short term as its parent company, Sagicor Financial Corporation, is currently maintaining its agricultural focus.

Ravi Rambarran, executive vice-president, international division, said last Wednesday that BFL, acquired by Sagicor last February, was being held as a trump card for future transactions.

At Sagicor's yearly investor and shareholder briefing on its 2007 performance at Hilton Barbados, he said: "It was really the desire to increase the ize of our land bank.

"Sagicor, throughout the Caribbean, has one of the largest land banks and uses those land banks to create derivative transactions that help the group, in terms of revenue, in terms of future real estate development, in terms of mortgages [and] in terms of property, casualty and life insurance sales."

Further, Sagicor's chief financial officer Philip Osborne told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY in an interview that the company would not convert BFL lands already in farming to residential development.

Uncertain

He indicated that 3 000 of the 4 000 acres owned by Barbados Farms were already in sugar-cane cultivation and diversifying to combat worldwide high food prices was uncertain.

"We just acquired the company. It is largely a sugar-cane growing company. It grows some vegetable crops but it is not significantly into vegetables or even into animals, and we would have to assess how that company goes forward. . . ," Osborne said.

The chief financial officer confirmed that Barbados Farms "[had] a couple of small [housing] developments and few lots of land about to be sold or in the process of sale, but there is no large-scale development designed to take place immediately".

Osborne concluded: "As we assess the company and look at those idle lands to see what is most appropriate, [we are] cognisant that planning permission would be necessary for any development." (SR)


Source:
Monday June 16, 2008
Nation News

http://www.nationnews.com/story/291934610734855.php