Sookoo steers RBTT flagship

Newly-appointed managing director and CEO of RBTT Bank, Suresh Sookoo, can switch from corporate board room lingo to Trini slang in an instant. 

Ask him about media reports that speculate on the impending merger Guardian Holdings Limited (GHL) and RBTT Financial Holdings Limited, and you are going to get a stock answer. “We own 20 percent of their general and life insurance business, we don’t own at the parent company level, GHL owns 20 percent of RBTT shares,” he said in a flat tone in an interview at RBTT’s Royal Court on Park Street. But when the time came to have his picture taken, he simply asked, “you want me to take off de jacket, roll up de sleeves, I could do that, too,” he said with a grin. His position as CEO puts him in charge of RBTT Bank Limited, the RBTT Financial Holdings’ flagship with assets of TT$9.2 billion, and  which operates 24 branches.  “That is the strategic alliance that is there,” he said in a corporate dead pan voice, when pressed about newspaper reports that Guardian Holdings Limited (GHL) and RBTT were about to seal a deal on becoming one corporate entity.

Sources say that while the deal was at one time a priority on GHL and RBTT’s agenda, it is now completely off the table. Financial sources also say that while GHL and RBTT will continue to hone the strategic alliance, there was no added value in a merged entity. I can’t comment on that,” Sookoo said, adding that it cost the bank money to deal with the speculation. “There is always talk out there,” is all he would say. “The question is, ‘how do we maximise the value of this alliance?’” he said, noting that as far as both parties were concerned, significant investments have been made. Sookoo, 46, is the consummate banker. From the time he entered RBTT as a teller in 1974, he exhibited leadership qualities. In six years he was a management trainee; four years later Sookoo was appointed Manager, Credit Administration. In 1987, he was one of the founding members of the commercial banking division. He left RBTT in 1996 to join Citibank (Trinidad) and primed this bank’s entry into the corporate segment of the market. “Citibank claimed that I was at the top of the heap,” he said of their overtures at the time. While there he said he saw a completely different approach to banking, which has served him in good stead.

Two years later, he was back at RBTT. “It was an opportunity I could not say no to,” said Sookoo, the father of two boys, aged 18 and 21. He’s been married for the past 22 years. He is a prolific reader who gets to the office at about 6.15 am. His day is cluttered with meetings. Sookoo is unperturbed about Fitch Ratings that put the RBTT Financial Holdings outlook as negative. This, he said, has to do with RBTT’s presence in economies that are depressed: Jamaica and the islands of the Eastern Caribbean. “It is nothing to be alarmed about,” he said of Fitch’s observation that weaker economic fundamentals in neighbouring countries have also added to the risk  profile of RBTT. The rating outlook was reflective of the sluggishness of those economies, he added, stressing that the rating had nothing to do with the performance of RBTT.

Jamaica is a bigger market than TT, he reasoned, noting that RBTT paid a high premium for getting into there. “Weaker economic fundamentals do not mean that you are not going to make any money,” is how he puts it. “You just have to be careful about how you spread your risks,” he said, pointing out that Scotia made a lot of money even when the financial industry in Jamaica was in turmoil. He says he is aware that for RBTT to stay ahead of the pack, it must continue to be creative with the types of financial products that it offers. It’s the reasoning behind the Roytrin Mutual Funds and Praetorian Property Mutual Fund, he notes. It’s either RBTT find ways to stay ahead of the competition or ossify, he said.

Noting that customers were becoming quite sophisticated in the way they now conducted transactions, he said local banks, including RBTT, had to meet the challenge. Even so, he stresses that nothing can replace customer service, and described this as RBTT’s front line attack in its corporate arsenal. “My job is to get people to keep coming back,” he said, noting that customers deserve respect. Fitch Rating also noted that the creation of the Barbados-headquartered First Caribbean Inter-national (CIBC) (the merger of the Caribbean operations of CIBC and Barclays Bank) could pose “a challenge to RBTT’s regional and local market position.”

Acknowledging that CIBC was a powerhouse and a bank to be reckoned with, Sookoo said it was only a matter of time before CIBC enters the TT market; it’s the strongest economy in the region, he noted. But he doesn’t think that CIBC will want to start their operations from scratch. A bank that size, he reasoned, will not want to grow incrementally, noting that it will want to piggy back on an already existing market. “I think they will be looking at an acquisition,” he says, noting that strategically this was CIBC’s best bet. As potential competition, “they are a group we have to reckon with.”

He said banks like RBTT and Republic were fortunate in that no international bank wanted to make the Caribbean its home. They may still come with “bells and whistles,” he said but RBTT would like to think that it can bring to the table something uniquely Caribbean in the services it provides. As CEO, he’s also witnessed how Barbados National Bank (BNB) was gobbled up by Republic Bank, RBTT’s major competitor, in the regional market.  RBTT, he said, was offered BNB, but refused it. “RBTT likes entities where we have management control and the ability to run things the way we want,” he explained. With FTAA around the corner, he said the Bankers Association of TT has hired a consultant to negotiate on behalf of the local banks. “There are some still some areas we may want to keep guarded,” he said. On securities trading,  Salomon Smith Barney, for instance, cannot just come in and set up operations here, he said. What they can do is come in as advisors to a trust company, he added.

With competition heating up among local banks for market share, Scotia Bank upset the applecart when it lowered interest rates last year. It had a ripple effect on the industry. He attributed local banks’ declining interest rates to the surplus liquidity in the system which was driven by a slowdown in government borrowing. He predicted though that this phenomenon will end in the next three-six months after which interest rates are expected to climb back up. “As the money supply begins to heat up, interest rates will go back up,” he said.