The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government needs to kickstart the next CLICO (Bahamas) resolution phase by approving the Board and manager for a newly-created insurance vehicle, Tribune Business can reveal.

The establishment of Coral Insurance Company, the special purpose vehicle (SPV) to which all the insolvent insurer’s policies that remain in effect will be transferred, awaits these key decisions.

Once that happens, Tribune Business sources said the CLICO (Bahamas) liquidator, Craig A. ‘Tony’ Gomez, will be able to submit his business plan for Coral to the Insurance Commission of the Bahamas (ICB) for regulatory approval.

And, in turn, once Coral is formally established and functioning, Leno Corporate Services will issue $45 million worth of bonds in its name - the second stage of the payout to compensate CLICO (Bahamas) former Executive Flexible Premium Annuity (EFPA) holders and those who previously surrendered their pension policies.

However, the wait for the Government’s decision has come too late for some. A disillusioned Bishop Simeon Hall, himself a CLICO (Bahamas) annuity holder, said in a statement that he was “throwing in the towel” in his pursuit of the matter.

With it now almost eight years since the insolvent life and health insurer was placed into liquidation by the Supreme Court, Bishop Hall said: “I must tell you that I am throwing in the towel on this noble cause, in which many of us have been engaged for almost eight long, frustrating years.

Someone else has to take us ‘over Jordan’. Of the 4,000 churches in the Bahamas, only less than half a dozen showed any interest in this corporate theft perpetuated by CLICO. This exercise should have received greater support than it has.”

He added: “Before the 2012 elections this government promised it would address it. Less than 10 per cent was paid, and we remain hopeful the balance would be paid in this lifetime.”

Mr Gomez, the Baker Tilly Gomez accountant and partner, remains gagged from speaking publicly on the liquidation by the Supreme Court.

However, sources familiar with the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Cabinet approval was needed for Coral’s Board members and management company before its creation could be completed.

Tribune Business understands there are two contenders for the management company - BISX-listed Family Guardian, and BAF Financial.

“At the end of the day, Coral will be a government-owned entity,” one source said. “The liquidator can’t tell them who to appoint. Once he passes the portfolio to them, they take on that liability.”

Tribune Business was separately told that the Government and all parties involved were “looking forward to getting it done”.

“Once the company is set up, Leno will issue in Coral’s name the bonds to be distributed,” this newspaper was told. “They need the company to be set up first, and Leno will do what it has to do.”

The bonds will be issued in exchange for, and replace, the pledges issued to former CLICO (Bahamas) clients owed more than $10,000, and who received their first cash payments in February 2016. That collective payment totalled some $13.1 million.