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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><DIV class=bigheadline>BILLIONAIRE LOSES FORTUNE IN T&T
</DIV><DIV class=byline>Part 1 of a special investigation by Camini Marajh cmarajh@trinidadexpress.com</DIV>
<DIV class=dateline>Sunday, February 25th 2007</DIV>
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</TD></TR><TR><TD class=caption>SELF-MADE BILLIONAIRE: Michael Lee-Chin.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><DIV class=texte>
After blazing a trail across Canada, down to his homeland in Jamaica, and then to Barbados, the AIC Financial Group of self-made mutual fund billionaire, Michael Lee-Chin, has run into major problems in Trinidad.
At the close of the last financial year in September 2006, the AIC Financial Group had piled up post start-up losses of well over $120 million in just three years.
And the man lined up to take over as group CEO is unable to come in after the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago refused to grant AIC's request for a "fit and proper" designation.
The jubilation and high hopes that accompanied the glitzy Country Club launch of Lee-Chin's AIC Financial Group in October 2003 has been followed by a succession of failings.
A Sunday Express investigation found over-priced acquisitions, wild recruitment, a heavy cash burn, ignorance of the local market, complacency, corporate infighting, weak internal controls, high staff turnover, inaccurate and untimely reporting to this country's Central Bank and some serious liquidity problems. </DIV><DIV class=texte>
Robert W Almeida, Senior Vice President and Portfolio Manager, a key Lee-Chin lieutenant, and the man running the Port of Spain operation from AIC's corporate headquarters in Burlington, Canada, is the first to admit that the Trinidad venture has hit a few snags.
"We started top heavy and too big, too fast," he said.
In an interview with the Sunday Express, Almeida insists, however, that the problems in Trinidad are vastly exaggerated, he's on top of things and that better times are ahead. But things are not quite what Almeida makes it out to be, according to the Sunday Express investigation, which found that:
- The group of companies in Trinidad has run foul of the legal and regulatory framework under which it operates, mainly the Financial Institutions Act (FIA), 1993 and the Securities Industry Act (SIA) ,1995
- The Trinidad operation has been using NCB Jamaica bank shares to bolster the bottom line
- Both AIC Finance Ltd and its sister company, AIC Capital Market Brokers Ltd, at different intervals, failed to meet their statutory capital requirements and remedied the situation only after regulatory intervention
- In its first nine months of operation, AIC Capital Market Brokers racked up losses of some $50 million
- A rash of sudden departures from the executive ranks, including top guns Keith King, Sean Albert, Kris Astaphan, Gary Awai, Marcus Jagdeo, Lennard Prescod, Aubrey Garcia and Tanya Barnes, among others
- The denial of "fit and proper" to another key Lee-Chin lieutenant, Aubyn Hill under the relevant legislation: Section 4 of the Jamaica Banking Act. Hill was allowed to continue as CEO, NCB Jamaica after the intervention of Jamaican Finance Minister Omar Davies who gave him the requisite clearance under Section 11 of the Act
- Refusal of the Barbados Central Bank to consider AIC's application for an offshore banking licence in that country for reasons of "public interest".
- The use of the parent company, AIC Barbados, as an investment vehicle through which dividends and interest received
</DIV><DIV class=byline>Part 1 of a special investigation by Camini Marajh cmarajh@trinidadexpress.com</DIV>
<DIV class=dateline>Sunday, February 25th 2007</DIV>
</TD></TR><TR><TD>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=5></TD><TD><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD align=middle></TD></TR><TR><TD class=caption>SELF-MADE BILLIONAIRE: Michael Lee-Chin.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><DIV class=texte>After blazing a trail across Canada, down to his homeland in Jamaica, and then to Barbados, the AIC Financial Group of self-made mutual fund billionaire, Michael Lee-Chin, has run into major problems in Trinidad.
At the close of the last financial year in September 2006, the AIC Financial Group had piled up post start-up losses of well over $120 million in just three years.
And the man lined up to take over as group CEO is unable to come in after the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago refused to grant AIC's request for a "fit and proper" designation.
The jubilation and high hopes that accompanied the glitzy Country Club launch of Lee-Chin's AIC Financial Group in October 2003 has been followed by a succession of failings.
A Sunday Express investigation found over-priced acquisitions, wild recruitment, a heavy cash burn, ignorance of the local market, complacency, corporate infighting, weak internal controls, high staff turnover, inaccurate and untimely reporting to this country's Central Bank and some serious liquidity problems. </DIV><DIV class=texte>
Robert W Almeida, Senior Vice President and Portfolio Manager, a key Lee-Chin lieutenant, and the man running the Port of Spain operation from AIC's corporate headquarters in Burlington, Canada, is the first to admit that the Trinidad venture has hit a few snags.
"We started top heavy and too big, too fast," he said.
In an interview with the Sunday Express, Almeida insists, however, that the problems in Trinidad are vastly exaggerated, he's on top of things and that better times are ahead. But things are not quite what Almeida makes it out to be, according to the Sunday Express investigation, which found that:
- The group of companies in Trinidad has run foul of the legal and regulatory framework under which it operates, mainly the Financial Institutions Act (FIA), 1993 and the Securities Industry Act (SIA) ,1995
- The Trinidad operation has been using NCB Jamaica bank shares to bolster the bottom line
- Both AIC Finance Ltd and its sister company, AIC Capital Market Brokers Ltd, at different intervals, failed to meet their statutory capital requirements and remedied the situation only after regulatory intervention
- In its first nine months of operation, AIC Capital Market Brokers racked up losses of some $50 million
- A rash of sudden departures from the executive ranks, including top guns Keith King, Sean Albert, Kris Astaphan, Gary Awai, Marcus Jagdeo, Lennard Prescod, Aubrey Garcia and Tanya Barnes, among others
- The denial of "fit and proper" to another key Lee-Chin lieutenant, Aubyn Hill under the relevant legislation: Section 4 of the Jamaica Banking Act. Hill was allowed to continue as CEO, NCB Jamaica after the intervention of Jamaican Finance Minister Omar Davies who gave him the requisite clearance under Section 11 of the Act
- Refusal of the Barbados Central Bank to consider AIC's application for an offshore banking licence in that country for reasons of "public interest".
- The use of the parent company, AIC Barbados, as an investment vehicle through which dividends and interest received