GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

GraceKennedy (GK) has come to an agree­ment with Sco­tia In­sur­ance Caribbean Ltd to ac­quire 100 per cent of the shares of Sco­tia In­sur­ance East­ern Caribbean Ltd (SIECL), with the as­so­ci­at­ed trans­ac­tion be­ing sub­ject to reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals and oth­er cus­tom­ary clos­ing con­di­tions.

SIECL is a li­censed life in­sur­ance com­pa­ny op­er­at­ing in sev­en coun­tries in the East­ern Caribbean: An­guil­la, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lu­cia and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from Grace Kennedy, SIECL of­fers cred­it pro­tec­tion re­gion­al­ly to cus­tomers on per­son­al loans, res­i­den­tial mort­gages, per­son­al lines of cred­it, per­son­al and small busi­ness cred­it cards.

In a state­ment Group CEO of GK, Don We­h­by said he was pleased to see the ac­qui­si­tion be­come a re­al­i­ty be­cause the East­ern Caribbean aligns with GK’s strate­gic vi­sion of ex­pand­ing its fi­nan­cial ser­vices busi­ness in the re­gion.

“We have iden­ti­fied gen­er­al and life in­sur­ance as sig­nif­i­cant ar­eas of growth in the Caribbean and have been ac­tive­ly seek­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in this re­gard. GK’s merg­ers and ac­qui­si­tions strat­e­gy has been ac­cel­er­at­ed through our new M&A unit and the ac­qui­si­tion of SIECL brings to fruition one of sev­er­al prospects the unit has in its sights.

“GraceKennedy re­mains ag­ile and re­spon­sive to take ac­tion for the ul­ti­mate ben­e­fit of our cus­tomers and our busi­ness, and I am con­fi­dent that this move will un­lock share­hold­er val­ue for our com­pa­ny,” We­h­by added.

The an­nounce­ment al­so came on the heels of the re­lease of GraceKennedy’s record-break­ing 2020 fi­nan­cial re­sults, which saw the com­pa­ny record­ing its best fi­nan­cial per­for­mance in its 99-year his­to­ry, in­clud­ing note­wor­thy growth in its in­sur­ance seg­ment.

Since 2019 GK has steadi­ly been bol­ster­ing its pres­ence in the in­sur­ance mar­ket.

Steven Whit­ting­ham, COO of GK­FG who has di­rect re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the group’s in­sur­ance seg­ment said, “GraceKennedy’s for­ay in­to health and life in­sur­ance, and the con­tin­ued growth of our lo­cal and re­gion­al broking, prop­er­ty and ca­su­al­ty in­sur­ance com­pa­nies have re­sult­ed in a 41 per cent in­crease in rev­enue over the last year for our In­sur­ance Di­vi­sion.

“We look for­ward to serv­ing the needs of cus­tomers the East­ern Caribbean and the strate­gic op­por­tu­ni­ty this ac­qui­si­tion presents for ex­pand­ing our of­fer­ings to them, bol­ster­ing our po­si­tion in the re­gion and grow­ing our life in­sur­ance busi­ness.”

Fol­low­ing re­ceipt of all reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals and the sat­is­fac­tion of all clos­ing con­di­tions, the trans­ac­tion will close and SIECL will be­come the newest mem­ber of the GraceKennedy Fi­nan­cial Group, which com­pris­es of GK Gen­er­al In­sur­ance, Canopy In­sur­ance, Key In­sur­ance, Al­lied In­sur­ance Bro­kers, GK In­sur­ance East­ern Caribbean, GraceKennedy Re­mit­tance Ser­vices, GraceKennedy Mon­ey Ser­vices, GK Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment and First Glob­al Bank.