May 2011 Financial News

Sagicor forecasts ‘profitable 2011’

May 19, 2011

An upbeat Dodridge Miller, Group President and Chief Executive Officer of the Sagicor Financial Corporation, yesterday announced that Sagicor Financial Corporation experienced a solid first quarter performance by the majority of the group and positively forecast that 2011 will be “a profitable year”. He went further and predicted the company would be able to maintain its dividend.

He said that with improving economic conditions in the company’s main markets, he expected growth to “pick up in the Caribbean and to continue in the United States” and added that “economic conditions of the recent past would have created some opportunities for consolidation.”

In a video conference to review the company’s first quarter’s performance Miller told reporters in Port-of-Spain and Bridgetown, although the Group Net Income amounted to a loss of US$11.1 million, compared to a net income of US$13.1 million for the same period last year.

He said the results include US$36.2 million in catastrophe losses for 2011, compared to US$7.5 million for the same period in 2010. He added that the remainder of the group produced net income before taxes of US$28.9 million compared to US$25.5 million – an increase of 13.3 per cent.

Miller said revenue for the quarter grew from US$292.5 million to US$345.9 million which reflected the continued growth in business. Also reflecting growth was the increase in total assets which jumped from US$4.9 billion to US$5.1 billion, but there was a decline in capital which dropped from US$739 million to US$716 million.

Talking about the March 31 agreement the Sagicor CEO said the IFC’s US$100 million investment in Sagicor would see US$20 million will be allocated to common shares, while the remaining US$80 million would be in convertible redeemable preference shares. This investment is the largest ever by IFC in the insurance sector and its largest investment to date in a single Caribbean entity.

The preference shares carry a rate of 6.5-percent and are convertible at US$1.98 per share into common equity. Miller said the transaction would involve a rights issue to shareholders.


Source:
Newsday
Thursday May 19, 2011

http://www.newsday.co.tt/business/0,140744.html