GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Share­hold­ers of ANSA Mer­chant Bank yes­ter­day ap­proved a cor­po­rate re­or­gan­i­sa­tion that sup­ports plans to bring its bank­ing op­er­a­tions un­der ANSA Bank Ltd with the es­tab­lish­ment of a new fi­nan­cial hold­ing com­pa­ny that trans­forms the mer­chant bank it­self in­to a non-op­er­at­ing fi­nan­cial hold­ing com­pa­ny.

The in­sti­tu­tion has tar­get­ted Jan­u­ary 1, 2027, as the ef­fec­tive date for the re­or­gan­i­sa­tion, al­though the time­line re­mains sub­ject to fi­nal reg­u­la­to­ry and gov­ern­men­tal ap­provals.

Un­der the pro­posed struc­ture, ANSA Bank would be­come the sin­gle li­censed op­er­at­ing com­mer­cial bank with­in the ANSA McAL group, com­bin­ing ANSA Mer­chant Bank’s near­ly five decades of bank­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, fi­nan­cial ex­per­tise and es­tab­lished cus­tomer re­la­tion­ships with ANSA Bank’s grow­ing re­tail, com­mer­cial and dig­i­tal bank­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

ANSA Mer­chant Bank Ltd would tran­si­tion in­to a non-op­er­at­ing fi­nan­cial hold­ing com­pa­ny, to be re­named ANSA Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (AFHL), with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for over­sight of the Group’s fi­nan­cial sub­sidiaries, in­clud­ing ANSA Bank Ltd, ANSA Wealth Man­age­ment Ltd, ANSA Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings (Bar­ba­dos) Ltd, Tatil and its sub­sidiaries.

At a spe­cial meet­ing of share­hold­ers which took place at Tatil build­ing Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of ANSA Mer­chant Bank Ltd Stephen Grell de­scribed the move as “an im­por­tant mo­ment in the evo­lu­tion” of the com­pa­ny, not­ing that the re­or­gan­i­sa­tion builds on near­ly five decades of growth.

“This is an im­por­tant mo­ment in the evo­lu­tion of ANSA Mer­chant Bank and our wider fi­nan­cial ser­vices busi­ness. For near­ly five decades, we have built a busi­ness ground­ed in stronger re­la­tion­ships, fi­nan­cial ex­per­tise, and the trust of our cus­tomers and you, our share­hold­ers.

We now have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to build on this foun­da­tion to po­si­tion the group for its next chap­ter,” he said.

Grell ex­plained that ANSA Mer­chant Bank cur­rent­ly per­forms two dis­tinct roles, op­er­at­ing as a fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion while al­so act­ing as the hold­ing com­pa­ny for the group’s fi­nan­cial sub­sidiaries.

“Un­der the pro­posed re­or­gan­i­sa­tion, we in­tend to sep­a­rate those re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. Our bank­ing op­er­a­tions will be brought to­geth­er un­der ANSA Bank, which will be­come the sin­gle li­censed op­er­at­ing com­mer­cial bank with­in the ANSA McAL Group.

“ANSA Mer­chant Bank Ltd would tran­si­tion in­to a non-op­er­at­ing fi­nan­cial hold­ing com­pa­ny to be known as ANSA Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd. Im­por­tant­ly, the pro­pos­al does not change the busi­ness op­er­a­tions of our oth­er fi­nan­cial sub­sidiaries, and this in­cludes both man­age­ment and our in­sur­ance busi­ness­es. What we are do­ing is chang­ing how the group is struc­tured so that each part of the busi­ness has a clear­er role and man­date,” he ex­plained.

Ac­cord­ing to Grell, the re­struc­tur­ing is be­ing dri­ven by reg­u­la­to­ry, op­er­a­tional and strate­gic con­sid­er­a­tions.

“The first is reg­u­la­to­ry. As fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions grow and be­come more di­ver­si­fied, the need for ef­fec­tive over­sight be­comes in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant. This struc­ture will bet­ter align us with reg­u­la­to­ry ex­pec­ta­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice,” he said.

He added that the new arrange­ment would cre­ate greater op­er­a­tional clar­i­ty and pro­vide a more ef­fi­cient plat­form for growth.

“And per­haps most im­por­tant from a com­mer­cial stand­point, is what this struc­ture al­lows us to do go­ing for­ward. We see the op­por­tu­ni­ties to im­prove how cap­i­tal is al­lo­cat­ed, strength­en op­er­a­tional fo­cus, and cre­ate a more ef­fi­cient plat­form for growth. We are op­er­at­ing in a com­pet­i­tive and chang­ing fi­nan­cial land­scape, and we need to re­struc­ture the busi­ness that sup­ports what we want to do,” Grell fur­ther ex­plained.

He said the new struc­ture would cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for more ef­fi­cient cap­i­tal al­lo­ca­tion, stronger op­er­a­tional per­for­mance and en­hanced com­pet­i­tive­ness in an in­creas­ing­ly dy­nam­ic fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor.

“We see op­por­tu­ni­ties to im­prove how cap­i­tal is al­lo­cat­ed, strength­en op­er­a­tional fo­cus and cre­ate a more ef­fi­cient plat­form for growth,” he said.

Grell said the com­bi­na­tion of ANSA Mer­chant Bank’s long-es­tab­lished client re­la­tion­ships and ex­per­tise with ANSA Bank’s broad­er bank­ing and dig­i­tal ca­pa­bil­i­ties cre­ates sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties for fu­ture ex­pan­sion.

The im­ple­men­ta­tion process would in­volve a busi­ness trans­fer agree­ment be­tween ANSA Mer­chant Bank and ANSA Bank.

The trans­fer would be fa­cil­i­tat­ed through a vest­ing or­der is­sued by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance pur­suant to the Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act.

That or­der would al­low for the le­gal trans­fer of as­sets, li­a­bil­i­ties, rights and oblig­a­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with the bank­ing busi­ness to ANSA Bank.

“Our pri­or­i­ty re­mains to ex­e­cute the tran­si­tion in an or­der­ly and re­spon­si­ble man­ner with the nec­es­sary ap­provals in place. Fur­ther to this, and com­ple­ment­ing to­day, the Cen­tral Bank has al­ready is­sued its con­di­tion­al no ob­jec­tion to the pro­posed re­or­gan­i­sa­tion. How­ev­er, there are still reg­u­la­to­ry and gov­ern­men­tal gov­ern­ment ap­provals and con­fir­ma­tions to be com­plet­ed, in­clud­ing the grant­i­ng of the vest­ing or­der.

“For share­hold­ers, how­ev­er, I want to be very clear about what the pro­pos­al means. Your in­vest­ment in the com­pa­ny re­mains com­plete­ly in­tact. You will con­tin­ue to hold the same shares, with the same rights and ben­e­fits at­tached to those shares,” Grell as­sured.

The com­pa­ny would re­main list­ed on the T&T Stock Ex­change, al­though its name will change to ANSA Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd and trade un­der the pro­posed tick­er sym­bol AFHL.

Grell fur­ther not­ed that the pro­posed com­po­si­tion brings the right bal­ance of ex­pe­ri­ence, in­de­pen­dence and lead­er­ship to pro­vide ef­fec­tive over­sight and sup­port the group’s long-term am­bi­tions.

It al­so in­cludes the re­tire­ment of four di­rec­tors, the con­tin­u­a­tion of five ex­ist­ing di­rec­tors and the ap­point­ment of sev­en new di­rec­tors.

The pro­posed new board is An­tho­ny N. Sab­ga III, Group Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO) of ANSA McAL Ltd, Savon Per­sad, Sharon Christo­pher, An­ton Gopauls­ingh, Vasti Sookoo-Go­lik­eri, Ian Nar­ine and Walt­nel Sosa.

A. Nor­man Sab­ga, chair­man of ANSA Mer­chant Bank Ltd, who al­so spoke, said, “Over the past five decades, we have built a busi­ness that has earned the trust of our share­hold­ers, cus­tomers and the com­mu­ni­ties we serve. That trust is some­thing we val­ue deeply. I am grate­ful to our share­hold­ers for their con­tin­ued con­fi­dence and sup­port as we take this im­por­tant next step. We have much to be proud of in our his­to­ry, and even more to look for­ward to as we build on that foun­da­tion for the gen­er­a­tions to come.”