The board of di­rec­tors of the NCB Fi­nan­cial Group (NCBFG) yes­ter­day ap­proved an in­ter­im div­i­dend of J$0.50 per or­di­nary share, ful­fill­ing a com­mit­ment made by Michael Lee-Chin, the ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of the Kingston, Ja­maica-head­quar­tered fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion, to re­sume the pay­ments.

The div­i­dend, in TT dol­lars, is equal to $0.022. NCBFG closed at $3.20 yes­ter­day on the lo­cal stock mar­ket, which means the in­ter­im div­i­dend of $0.022 is equal to a div­i­dend yield of less than 1 per cent. The div­i­dend is payable on De­cem­ber 18, 2023, to share­hold­ers on record as at De­cem­ber 4, 2023.

Lee-Chin held 1,467,645,135 NCBFG shares as at the end of June 2023, ac­cord­ing to the fi­nan­cial hold­ing com­pa­ny’s unau­dit­ed fi­nan­cial re­sults for the nine months end­ed June 30, 2023. With a div­i­dend of J$0.50 a share, the NCBFG chair­man is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive a pay­out of J$733.82 mil­lion, which is equal to about US$4.70 mil­lion.

The last time NCBFG de­clared a div­i­dend was at a meet­ing of its board of di­rec­tors on April 29, 2021. That was an in­ter­im div­i­dend of $0.50 per share, which was payable on May 31, 2021 to share­hold­ers on record as at May 14, 2021.

NCBFG’s non pay­ment of div­i­dends since May 2021 con­tributed to the dis­rup­tion in the up­per ech­e­lons of NCBFG ear­li­er this year.

On Ju­ly 18, 2023, the group an­nounced that ef­fec­tive that day, its Group CEO and deputy CEO, Patrick Hyl­ton and Den­nis Co­hen were pro­ceed­ing on va­ca­tion leave for three weeks.

In an in­ter­view with the Ja­maica Ob­serv­er that was pub­lished on Ju­ly 14, Lee-Chin said of the group’s fail­ure to pay a div­i­dend since May 2021: “First­ly, I’m not hap­py. I am def­i­nite­ly not hap­py. And I am not just speak­ing for my­self. I am speak­ing for all share­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the pen­sion­ers. Cer­tain­ly, we all de­pend on the in­come from div­i­dends...I am not hap­py be­cause I have had to be sell­ing as­sets to meet my ex­pens­es.”

Al­though he com­plained about NCBFG not pay­ing a div­i­dend, Lee-Chin was chair­man of NCB Ja­maica when he ac­quired the bank in 2002. Lee-Chin, who is the largest share­hold­er of the com­pa­ny with about 60 per cent of its is­sued share cap­i­tal, has al­so been chair­man of NCBFG since its in­cor­po­ra­tion in April 2016.

As chair­man and as NCBFG’s largest share­hold­er, it is like­ly Lee-Chin would have had to agree to the non pay­ment of div­i­dends from May 2021.

Last Mon­day, NCBFG an­nounced that Hyl­ton and Co­hen had re­signed as of­fi­cers and di­rec­tors of the hold­ing com­pa­ny and its sub­sidiaries, based on agree­ments reached with them.

“The re­lat­ed sep­a­ra­tion arrange­ments in­clude cash pay­ments and arrange­ments for the al­lot­ment of shares, and the costs will have a ma­te­r­i­al im­pact on the per­for­mance of the com­pa­ny, pri­mar­i­ly in the fourth quar­ter of the 2023 fi­nan­cial year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023,” said NCBFG.

In a What­sApp voice note is­sued yes­ter­day morn­ing, Lee-Chin said he was “so ex­cit­ed” be­cause he had just chaired “the short­est and most im­por­tant board meet­ing ever, I am sure, in the his­to­ry of NCB.”

He said the board meet­ing yes­ter­day was the short­est be­cause it last­ed less than five min­utes.

“Im­por­tant be­cause we ap­proved the div­i­dend this morn­ing, hav­ing not paid a div­i­dend for three years,” said Lee-Chin.

He said over the last three years, all of Ja­maica was af­fect­ed by the fail­ure of NCBFG to pay a div­i­dend.

“Pen­sion­ers, pen­sion funds, cus­tomers reg­u­la­tors, gov­ern­ment, our lenders, the press, staff and share­hold­ers. And you all told us, in your sin­gu­lar voice, that it is a re­minder of the im­por­tance of NCB to Ja­maica. It is the peo­ple’s bank,” said Lee-Chin.

NCBFG trades on both the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change and the Ja­maica Stock Ex­change. The fi­nan­cial hold­ing com­pa­ny has a mer­chant bank li­cence in T&T as well as a bro­ker­age li­cence and owns about 60 per cent of Guardian Hold­ings Ltd.

Lee-Chin added: “This ap­proval (to pay the div­i­dend) is a com­mit­ment to all our stake­hold­ers that– notwith­stand­ing Basel III, notwith­stand­ing IFRS17, notwith­stand­ing high in­ter­est rates and high in­fla­tion – div­i­dends have to be paid.” He said NCBFG has ac­cept­ed the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pay div­i­dends.