Guardian Holdings declares record $1.05B profits

Guardian Holdings Ltd has reported the highest level of profit ever declared by a listed company in the Trinidad and Tobago market, totaling some TT $1.05 billion (US $169.9 million). Shareholder’s equity at December 31, 2003, stood at $2,501 million, 122 percent higher than the previous year’s figure, while medium debt increased by only nine percent to $1,064 million. The groups’s total assets grew by 58 percent, and at year’s end amounted to TT $11.6 billion or US$1,863 million.

In a statement, chairman Nazir Ahamad attributed the group’s success, which he described as “nothing short of superb,” to continued excellent performance of the subsidiary companies, the effects of recent acquisitions. Additionally, he said, the booking of unrealised gains net of attributable goodwill on the group’s holdings of RBTT Financial Holdings Ltd (RBTTFH), which shares amounting to $486.2 million, as well as the net realised gains of $195 million arising from the sale of part of its stake in RBTTFH, could be linked to the group’s performance. The gains on that transaction, he said, are considered non-recurrent. On a fully diluted basis, excluding all non-recurrent items, GHL’s earnings per share were $2.22 in 2003, compared with the $1.21 of the corresponding period, an increase of 83 percent.

The non-recurrent items generated a further increase in shareholder value of $4.03 per share. In early 2003, GHL finalised the acquisition of Fatum Holdings NV, which resulted in a significant boost to its insurance funds and total assets, Ahamad revealed. The group’s insurance funds increased by 65 percent. In September 2003, the Guardian General Insurance Division purchased the UK-based Link Underwriting Agency Ltd, which, Ahamad said, would provide the group with access to property and casualty business in the United Kingdom and Europe. At a general meeting in October, shareholders of GHL agreed to a resolution for GHL’s acquisition of their 20 percent interests in Guardian Insurance Ltd (GIL) and Guardian General Ltd (GGL).

This brought the total shares in issue to 190.7 million, with the value of the transaction amounting to $590 million. Subsequent to this transaction, RBTTFH acquired a further $8,219,298 shares in GHL, bringing its total investment in the group to 20 percent. The sale of RBTTFH shares, together with the purchase of RBTTFH’s interest in GIL and GGL, accounted for a net decrease of $238 million by the end of the year. Ahamad revealed that based on the results for the year, directors had decided to pay a final dividend of 42 cents per share, comprising an ordinary dividend of 36 cents per share and a special dividend of six cents per share.