REPUBLIC BANK

The Republic Bank Group’s after tax profit of $302.6 million for the half-year ended March 31, representing as it does a 22.6 per cent increase over comparative results for 2003, is an indication of the success of the investment strategies of the financial institution. In an Interim Report published in yesterday’s Newsday, the financial major pointed to its acquiring of substantial shareholding in two companies, including one in Trinidad and Tobago — Reliance Stockbrokers Limited — in which it acquired 91.1 per cent of the shareholding. The other major controlling acquisition was that of 99.8 per cent of Banco Mercantil SA, in the Dominican Republic.

The other acquisitions comprised an additional 8.1 per cent shareholding in the Barbados National Bank which pushed its interest to 65.1 per cent, and a further 8.7 per cent shareholding in Eastern Caribbean Financial Holdings Limited which brought Republic’s involvement to 20 per cent. A plus has been that all members of the Group, with the sole exception of Banco Mercantil SA have “performed according to expectations,” Republic has pointed out in its Interim Report. Banco Mercantil’s setback, however temporary, has been as the Group indicated, as a direct result of the Dominican Republic’s economy having been under stress. There was a recorded loss of $49.5 million for the first six months of operations, but steps taken are expected to lead to an improvement in the remaining six months of the financial year. Nonetheless, based on the Group’s overall performance, shareholders will receive a dividend of 70 cents per share, a heartening increase of 27.2 percent over that approved by the Board of Directors for the preceding half-year.

Of interest is that while Caribbean politicians are still dragging their proverbial feet on the issue of closer regional integration, Republic Bank and other business majors with their massive investments in regional companies have gone ahead with a tacit Caribbean commercial integration process on their own. Other Trinidad and Tobago business houses, including Guardian Holdings Limited, Trinidad Cement Limited and RBTT have invested in Jamaica, Barbados and several Member States of the Caribbean Community of Nations, while Jamaican and Barbadian companies have done likewise.  Meanwhile, because of the clearly healthy profits attritutable to shareholders of the country’s financial institutions, it may be time for Republic and the other similar houses to re-examine their bank charges which have not only been increased, but their net widened in recent years.