Thursday, November 12 2009

Lord Michael Ashcroft is setting up shop in Port-of-Spain and as usual with the controversial Peer, his timing is impeccable. Financial possibilities aside, Lord Ashcroft is also a political financier and the current Trinidad and Tobago Parliament nears its mid-term. A tantalising prospect is the extent to which the country’s next General Elections may be of interest to the Lord, if only because combatants in those elections will require a $40 million kitty and a few of the usual sources of funds have had their balance sheets go awry.

In late October the Ashcroft controlled British Caribbean Bank (BCB) Holdings Ltd listed on the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange (TTSE) and BCB’s CEO Lyndon Giuseppi, the former RBTT executive, have been looking at the prospect of picking at the carcass of AIC to jumpstart operations in Trinidad.

Whether or not that works out, part of Ashcroft’s impeccable timing is that a city vantage point gives him a good view into those CL Financial assets which are likely to find themselves on Euric Bobb’s chopping block. Those assets are likely to include Clico, which CL’s CEO Steve Bideshi said the Group is to give up. At any time it can also include the CL’s Republic Bank’s shares. Then do not also rule out the prospect, that at the end of the reorganisation of the CL Group and the absorption of CMMB and the business of CIB into First Citizens, the State may declare its hand on the future shape and ownership of First Citizens: an IPO for First Citizens is always on the cards. Ashcroft, with Euric Bobb and Wendell Mottley amongst his Directors, will surely be counted amongst the interested parties.

According to its website (www.bcbholdings.com) BCB’s ordinary shares are currently traded on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange and on the Bermuda Stock Exchange. Its principal subsidiaries comprise of The Belize Bank Limited (“Belize Bank”), which operates in Belize, British Caribbean Bank Limited (“BCB”), which operates in the Turks and Caicos Islands and British Caribbean Bank International Limited which is based in Belize and operates internationally.

Ashcroft comes to Port-of- Spain just at that time when the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) had been in the local news. First was Senator Mark’s allegation, immediately denied by Udecott, that Udecott’s chairman owned property in TCI next to Allan Forrest. Second, was the decision by the Unit Trust Corporation (UTC) to pull the plug and secure its interests in the billion dollar Dellis Cay development project in TCI.

Of the first news item, Allan Forrest is the CEO of TCI headquartered Johnston Construction International (JCI), the contractor on the Chancery Lane Complex in San Fernando. Johnston, according to its website (www.johnstonint.com) was until 1994 owned by BHI (Belize Holdings Inc) whose Chairman is Lord Ashcroft. The company’s website says that “subsequently, as part of a management buyout, in May 1999 Johnston International Ltd was purchased by Oxford Ventures Ltd.” One of the initial Johnston owned assets in TCI is the 495 acre Leeward development which found its way into the report of Sir Robin Auld’s just concluded Commission of Inquiry into corruption in the TCI. One allegation was that the home of disgraced TCI Premier Michael Misick was constructed by Johnston on a portion of that Leeward asset.

There are arguments, one strongly advanced by the TCI Journal, that the Leeward is still owned or controlled by BHI and Ashcroft. Of the Dellis Cay issue, it was the decision of the UTC to pull its funding on that Dellis Cay project which brought the Turks and Caicos Islands into Trinidad and Tobago’s news for the second time in a few weeks. Like Johnston and the Leeward development, Dellis Cay co-owner Dr Cem Kinay also got mentioned in the Sir Auld Inquiry. Kinay managed, in June 2009, to obtain relief against the Commission of Inquiry for failing to follow due process prior to the inclusion of his name in its final report. By June 2008 Kinay had closed a deal with the premier’s Government for the purchase of another island for another development.

Lord Ashcroft, the deputy chairman of the UK’s next ruling party, the Conservatives, is not new to controversy.

Still, his greatest fame and controversies come from Belize where, by comparison, his personal fortune is said to be more than six times the total assets of the country’s Central Bank (Economist, 22 October, 2009). With the change in Government in Belize, the new leadership has sought with varying degrees of success to roll back some of the deals made. Now Ashcroft, assisted by changing wind direction in the Turks and Caicos and Belize, drifts into Port-of-Spain. He has a special liking for marginal seats and in Part 2 we will consider what interest, if any, he may have in Trinidad and Tobago’s marginal seats.