GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

ANSA Mer­chant Bank pro­duced a sig­nif­i­cant con­sol­i­dat­ed prof­it be­fore tax of $201 mil­lion for the year end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2023, com­pared to a re­stat­ed loss be­fore tax of $16 mil­lion for the pri­or year. The need for re­state­ment was dri­ven by the adop­tion of the IFRS 17 (in­sur­ance con­tracts) ac­count­ing stan­dard for the first time in 2023, said chair­man A Nor­man Sab­ga in his state­ment.

The com­pa­ny pre­sent­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments at its an­nu­al meet­ing, which was held at the Hy­att Re­gency on Thurs­day.

Sab­ga not­ed that to­tal as­sets grew by nine per cent to $10.3 bil­lion in 2023, ver­sus a re­stat­ed $9.4 bil­lion in 2022.

This, he said, was part­ly dri­ven by strong growth in loans and ad­vances and re­sult­ed in its bank­ing busi­ness, com­pris­ing ANSA Mer­chant Bank Ltd, ANSA Mer­chant Bank (Bar­ba­dos) Ltd, and its com­mer­cial bank, ANSA Bank Ltd, pro­duc­ing a prof­it be­fore tax of $138 mil­lion for the year.

Say­ing that the group re­mained well po­si­tioned for the fu­ture, Sab­ga said, “Our sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ments in new IT sys­tems across the bank­ing and in­sur­ance sec­tors con­tin­ue to sup­port the ex­e­cu­tion of our vi­sion and will bear sig­nif­i­cant re­turns for all stake­hold­ers in 2024 and be­yond.”

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of ANSA Mer­chant Bank Ltd, Ian De Souza, said the im­prove­ment in per­for­mance in 2023 was at­trib­uted to the ro­bust per­for­mance of all of its core busi­ness­es and the mark-to-mar­ket gains record­ed on in­vest­ments.

De Souza said the par­ent com­pa­ny of the group, ANSA Mer­chant Bank Ltd closed 2023 with to­tal rev­enue of $297.7 mil­lion, which was up 43 per cent over the pri­or year.

Prof­it be­fore tax amount­ed to $155.9 mil­lion, an in­crease of 50 per cent over the pre­vi­ous year’s $104.2 mil­lion.

Fur­ther, De Souza said the in­vest­ment bank­ing di­vi­sion re­mained stead­fast in its com­mit­ment to be­ing a lead arranger in the lo­cal and re­gion­al cap­i­tal mar­kets.

It con­tributed $82.8 mil­lion to over­all rev­enue, which was a 25 per cent in­crease from the pri­or year.

“For 2024, we an­tic­i­pate be­com­ing even more ag­gres­sive in the mar­ket, as we strate­gi­cal­ly fo­cus on pro­vid­ing in­no­v­a­tive mer­chant bank­ing so­lu­tions for cus­tomers at home, in Bar­ba­dos and across the wider Caribbean,” De Souza added.

Fur­ther, he said the busi­ness bank­ing di­vi­sion, which was found­ed in 2022 to serve the needs of cor­po­rate and com­mer­cial cus­tomers, dis­played com­mend­able per­for­mance in 2023 by gen­er­at­ing strong busi­ness vol­umes and rev­enue of $64.4 mil­lion.

“This seg­ment has ex­pe­ri­enced re­mark­able growth due to its ag­gres­sive orig­i­na­tion ef­forts and its fo­cus on serv­ing the cus­tomers to their sat­is­fac­tion. As the di­vi­sion grows and de­vel­ops, there will be pro­duc­tive syn­er­gies with the in­vest­ment ser­vices,” De Souza said.

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Tatil and Tatil Life, Musa Ibrahim, told the meet­ing the in­te­gra­tion plan­ning of Colfire in­to Tatil is pro­gress­ing well, adding that the com­pa­ny looks for­ward to the new op­por­tu­ni­ties this will bring to clients and busi­ness­es.