Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (RFHL) has record­ed prof­it at­trib­ut­able to eq­ui­ty hold­ers of the par­ent of $904.1 mil­lion for the year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2020.

This rep­re­sents a de­crease of $677.1 mil­lion or 42.8 per cent com­pared to the prof­it of $1.58 bil­lion re­port­ed in the pre­vi­ous fi­nan­cial year.

In a re­lease, the Chair­man of RFHL, Vin­cent Pereira said: “These re­sults are cred­itable de­spite re­flect­ing the neg­a­tive im­pact of the nov­el coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) main­ly de­creased eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.”

Pereira said that the neg­a­tive in­flu­ence of the virus was al­so seen in “low­er mar­gins due to re­duced in­ter­est rates, waiv­er of fees and com­mis­sions un­der the COVID-19 re­lief ini­tia­tives, in­creased pro­vi­sion­ing to cov­er po­ten­tial fu­ture loss­es on the loan and in­vest­ments port­fo­lios, and im­pair­ment of the re­main­ing Good­will held in our Bar­ba­dos sub­sidiary.”

The RFHL chair­man went on to say that to­tal as­sets stood at $104.3 bil­lion at Sep­tem­ber 30, 2020, an in­crease of $16.8 bil­lion or 19.2 per cent over that of the pri­or year.

He not­ed that the in­crease was pri­mar­i­ly due to the ac­qui­si­tion of Sco­tia­bank’s bank­ing op­er­a­tions in St Maarten and the East­ern Caribbean (An­guil­la, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lu­cia, and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines) on No­vem­ber 1, 2019.

The trans­ac­tion, Pereira said, added $12.7 bil­lion. He al­so not­ed that the ac­qui­si­tion of Sco­tia­bank’s op­er­a­tions in the British Vir­gin Is­lands (BVI) on June 1st, 2020 added a fur­ther $ 3.1 bil­lion to the Group’s as­set base.

RFHL’s Board of Di­rec­tors has de­clared a fi­nal div­i­dend of $2.10 (2019: $3.25), which brings the to­tal div­i­dend to $439.8 mil­lion or $2.70 per share for the fis­cal year (2019: $4.50).

Ac­cord­ing to Pereira, this rep­re­sents a de­crease of 40 per cent in to­tal div­i­dend pay­ment, re­flec­tive of the de­crease in prof­itabil­i­ty in the cur­rent fis­cal year.

He ex­plained that the com­bi­na­tion of this div­i­dend and the in­crease in the share price of $20.20 dur­ing the year, equates to a to­tal share­hold­er re­turn for the year of 18.5 per cent..

Pereira con­clud­ed: “While there con­tin­ues to be un­cer­tain­ty over the fu­ture di­rec­tion and du­ra­tion of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, we are con­fi­dent that the Group’s strong cap­i­tal base, di­verse ge­o­graph­ic foot­print and ro­bust gov­er­nance cul­ture leaves it well po­si­tioned to sup­port the re­cov­ery ef­forts of the economies with­in which we op­er­ate.”

The RFHL chair­man not­ed that the group will con­tin­ue to be re­spon­sive to the evolv­ing needs of its cus­tomers and clients, pro­vide safe work­ing con­di­tions for its em­ploy­ees and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ties it serves.