Dec 2006 Financial News

CIBC ACQUIRES MAJORITY STAKE IN FIRSTCARIBBEAN INTERNATIONAL BANK

Dec 28, 2006

On December 22, 2006 FirstCaribbean International Bank Limited (FCIB) announced that Canadian Imperial Bank of Canada (CIBC) had purchased 599,401,230 shares of FirstCaribbean under the previously announced plans to acquire Barclays Bank’s 43.7 per cent ownership in the regional financial institution. The shares purchased represents approximately 90 per cent of Barclay’s holdings in FCIB and approximately 39 per cent of the total issued share capital in FCIB.

The total consideration for the transaction was US$988,652,389 in cash which represents: US$1.62 for each FirstCaribbean share plus accrued but unpaid dividends.

Additionally, CIBC has made an offer to all remaining shareholders, to acquire their shareholding in the regional bank. The mandatory offer to FirstCaribbean shareholders was made by way of an Offer Circular from CIBC Investments (Cayman) Limited, to acquire all the issued common shares at a price of US$1.62 a share, plus accrued but unpaid dividends. The offer is valid until January 30th, 2007.

Under its agreement with CIBC, Barclays will have the option to tender all or a portion of its remaining 66, 600,137 FirstCaribbean shares under the offer.

While the offer has been made to all shareholders in fulfilment of the regional securities take over codes, both CIBC and FirstCaribbean have publicly stated that they are committed to maintaining a strong minority ownership in FirstCaribbean, which they expect to grow in the future.

The Barclays sale to CIBC was first announced in March of this year, and closed on December 22nd.


Gia Singh
WISE Research Team