Unit Trust to pay out $.5B

The Unit Trust Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago is poised this year to pay a whopping $.5 billion to its unit holders, surpassing the $473 million it paid last year. This, to date, will be the biggest pay-out to investors by a financial institution in TT, according to  Unit Trust Chairman, Hubert Alleyne, when he spoke last Thursday in Tobago. He made the disclosure when he addressed the ceremonial sod turning for construction of UTC’s new $14 million Tobago Branch Office in uptown Scarborough. Alleyne, earlier, drew an analogy between Unit Trust and the Tobago House of Assembly (THA), which were established in 1980 and 1981, respectively. While the THA was born out of the clear need to develop a system of internal self-government to express the independent will and desires of the  people of Tobago within the notion of a unitary state of Trinidad and Tobago, he noted, Unit Trust came on stream against the background of a declining national economy which had led to greater recognition of the need to view the people of this country as being more immediately and intimately involved in steering the direction of their individual lives.

“In essence, therefore, the design of each institution is meant to extract from the native intelligence and creativity of our people, a will to determine their own destiny,” the Unit Trust Chairman told his audience. “Whether we speak of the allocation of finite geo-political resources, or the investing of limited personal, financial resources, these two processes helped activate the same essential concepts,” he asserted. Moreover, Alleyne observed that both the UTC, with respect to minimising the risk to its unitholders while maximising the benefits they enjoy, and the THA, in terms of Tobago’s development, must strictly adhere to the “delicate exercise of balancing the use of resources which is critical to achieve a judicious mix of relative safety and profitable returns.” He stressed that “all were well aware that none of this can be achieved if the constituents/clients are not on board with us every step of the way,” he added.