Oct 2010 Financial News

AIC shuffles 23 million NCB shares

Oct 29, 2010

Within the past three weeks 'a substantial shareholder(s)' of National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited (NCB), which is controlled by Jamaican-Canadian billionaire Michael Lee-Chin, has disposed of more than 23 million of the bank's shares, in separate transactions.

The transactions, at market price, would have been valued at a combined J$415 million.

It's not clear whether the separate notices of the trade involved one or more shareholders, but separate industry sources say the earlier trades were done by AIC Global Holdings, which is connected to the parent company of NCB, AIC Barbados Limited.

AIC Global Holdings holds 85.48 million, or 3.47 per cent, of the bank's shares.

NCB declined to comment on the trades, citing confidentiality.

"We are unable to issue a statement or comment on the matter below as confidentiality laws protecting the privacy of investors prohibit such action by the bank," said Tishan Lee, senior corporate communications officer.

The last sale was executed on October 20, where 2,551,414 shares crossed the trading floor, in sale of shares by "a substantial shareholder", the bank reported.

The transactions have made NCB one of the most actively traded stocks this month.

For the week ending October 15, NCB captured 19.75 per cent of market volume, the second highest volume leader. It was market leader the following week, with 14.62 per cent of the 17.67 million units traded on the Jamaican market.

The single highest trade so far since the start of October has been a transaction valued at approxi-mately J$16.9 million on October 8.

On that day, the Jamaica Stock Exchange reported 9,675,399 shares being traded. The stock price closed at J$17.50 that day.

Analysts polled by the Financial Gleaner said it was not clear whether all the trades were done by AIC Holdings, nor the purpose of the transactions. The trades were said to have been executed through NCB Capital Markets, the wealth-management subsidiary of NCB.

AIC Barbados owns 57.09 per cent of NCB shares, but Lee Chin, through his other companies and personal holdings, controls 63.05 per cent of the banking group, Jamaica's largest by assets.

NCB is among Lee-Chin's most prized assets. He has utilised its shares before to back his investments and debt issues, including 877 million units pledged to secure several bond issues by AIC Barbados Limited.

The last time the shares saw similar multiple, high-volume trading activity - amounting to some 20 million shares - Lee-Chin was positioning to launch a Caribbean equity fund to finance the acquisition of new assets. He since bought into a Dominican Republic resort development.

Robert Almeida, the boss of AIC Global Holdings, declined com-ment on the reason for the sales, and whether it meant the company was again raising capital to seed its current or a new equity fund or new investments.

"Unfortunately, there is no further disclosure available at this time," Almeida said.

AIC Barbados is the vehicle used by Lee Chin for his Caribbean fund-raising and investment ventures.

NCB is a J$315-billion company by assets. Its stock-market value is around J$47 billion, or J$18 per share.


Source:
sabrina.gordon@gleanerjm.com
Jamaica Gleaner
Friday October 29, 2010

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20101029/business/business6.html