ANSA Mer­chant Bank and its fi­nan­cial ser­vices group of com­pa­nies record­ed in­creased prof­its in 2021.

In the com­pa­ny’s An­nu­al Re­port, Chair­man A. Nor­man Sab­ga con­firmed the com­pa­ny record­ed prof­it be­fore tax of $360 mil­lion in 2021. This rep­re­sent­ed a 76% im­prove­ment from $205 mil­lion in 2020.

Sab­ga said, “This was dri­ven large­ly by mark to mar­ket in­vest­ment val­u­a­tions aris­ing from the re­cov­ery in the lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al eq­ui­ty mar­kets. To­tal Op­er­at­ing In­come for 2021 reached $1.156 bil­lion, up 28% from $903 mil­lion in 2020. To­tal Eq­ui­ty in­creased by $225 mil­lion or 8% year over year to $2.9 bil­lion, while To­tal As­sets in­creased by 18% and end­ed at $9.4 bil­lion.”

He added the Group saw an im­prove­ment in key ra­tios such as re­turn on av­er­age as­sets and re­turn on eq­ui­ty which amount­ed to 3.53% and 10.98% re­spec­tive­ly com­pared to 2.02% and 6.21% in the pri­or pe­ri­od.

The re­port al­so con­firmed that TATIL had en­tered in­to an agree­ment to ac­quire 94.24% of Colo­nial Fire & Gen­er­al In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (COLFIRE).

Sab­ga said, “This ac­qui­si­tion is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in 2022, sub­ject to all reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals be­ing re­ceived. This lat­est ac­qui­si­tion fol­lows on the heels of the ac­qui­si­tion of Bank of Bar­o­da (Trinidad & To­ba­go) Lim­it­ed and sub­se­quent re­brand­ing to ANSA Bank Lim­it­ed in ear­ly 2021, which has al­ready de­liv­ered sig­nif­i­cant loan growth and which has com­menced a ma­jor trans­for­ma­tion­al jour­ney to be­come the first lo­cal dig­i­tal­ly en­abled com­mer­cial bank.”

He al­so not­ed the re-brand­ing of the com­pa­ny’s Bar­ba­dos-based sub­sidiary, Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fi­nance Co Ltd to ANSA Mer­chant Bank (Bar­ba­dos) Lim­it­ed al­so reaped com­mend­able re­wards.

He said, “I am en­cour­aged by these strate­gic ini­tia­tives and by our record re­sults which speak to an ef­fi­cient­ly run fi­nan­cial ser­vices group, that is made up of a di­ver­si­fied port­fo­lio of Bank­ing and In­sur­ance com­pa­nies.”