Business Briefs
Published:Wednesday | July 7, 2021 | 12:01 PM
● Fesco adjusts executive titles
Future Energy Source Company Limited, which trades as Fesco, has announced title changes for three offices. Jeremy Barnes has dropped the title of CEO and is now managing director, and will continue holding a seat on the board of directors. Trevor Heaven is now executive chairman, and consequent to the creation of the executive chairman position, Eaton Parkins was named as lead independent director to help maintain the board’s independence.
● NCB wishes Adrian Lee-Chin well in his future endeavours
As it turns out, the undetermined period of Adrian Lee-Chin’s leave of absence was short-lived – two to three days.
On June 28, NCB Financial Group issued a statement that Adrian, the son of the chairman and principal owner of the banking group, Michael Lee-Chin, was taking leave to attend to “pressing personal issues”, after serving just under one year as director of both NCB Financial and its flagship business National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited, and that “the duration of absence is not known at this time”. Then, on July 1, NCB Financial issued another market notice saying Lee-Chin the younger had resigned, and wished him well in his future endeavours.
NCB Financial, Jamaica’s largest banking group with assets of $1.8 trillion, offered no explanation as to why the leave of absence turned into a resignation from the two boards to which Adrian Lee-Chin, who was educated at the University of Western Ontario and Harvard Business School, was appointed on July 29, 2020. No replacement for the board seats has yet been announced.
● NCB top brass joins TransJamaican board
President & CEO of NCB Financial Group Patrick Hylton and CEO of NCB Capital Markets Limited Steven Gooden were both appointed directors of the board of TransJamaican Highway Limited on June 25. NCB Financial and its subsidiary NCB Capital control at least 15 per cent of TransJamaican through different entities. The highway company listed on the Jamaican stock market in early 2020, in one of the country’s largest IPOs brokered by NCB Capital Markets.
● Sagicor adds tele-underwriting as new form of service delivery
Sagicor Life Jamaica has introduced tele-underwriting, which allows telephone consultations with underwriters as an alternative to document submissions by clients. The information supplied by clients will be captured digitally on an Electronic Application Amendment Document. The discussions are followed up with email confirmation of the information relayed in the conversations. Traditional paper documentation will remain on offer to clients who prefer it. The tele-underwiting service was launched on Monday, July 5.
● PanJam APO awaits market recovery
PanJam Investment Limited’s plans for an additional public offering of shares are still on hold. Newly installed CEO Joanna Banks says the property and investment conglomerate is mindful that the Jamaican capital market is continuing to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and, as such, PanJam is adopting a measured approach. Banks provided the update to shareholders on July 1 at the company’s annual general meeting, saying PanJam was still waiting for the stock market to return to pre-COVID levels. The conglomerate wants to raise US$100 million to fund its projects.
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