The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A well-known Bahamian accounting firm has teamed with a local investment house in a "strategic alliance" that has seen the latter taking over its back office and registered agent functions.

Senior executives at FT Consultants and Providence Advisors confirmed the tie-up to Tribune Business after this newspaper was alerted to the move, with the two companies now sharing the same office space at the investment house's Goodman's Bay Corporate Centre headquarters.

Kenwood Kerr, Providence Advisors' chief executive, responded "that's correct" when contacted by Tribune Business about the partnership. "It's a business alliance," he confirmed. "What is happening is we took over their registered office, their registered agent and back office services. They're still going to be doing insolvencies but using Providence Advisors' back office."

Mr Kerr spoke only briefly, and could not be reached for further comment yesterday. A written statement that he said was going to be produced also did not materialise. However, Maria Ferere, FT Consultants' president and managing director, confirmed the details to Tribune Business last night.

"We've formed a strategic alliance," she disclosed. "We are sharing office space, and will be looking at doing something a little more detailed, but cannot speak to that now as we are still awaiting regulatory approval for it.

"We've gotten out of all the other registered agent, registered office stuff, and they'll [Providence Advisors] be doing that." Ms Ferere added that FT Consultants will continue to focus on its core restructuring and insolvency business, and said the partnership with Mr Kerr's company did not imply that the company is gradually winding down its affairs - as some in the industry are speculating.

FT Consultants began operations on January 3, 2006, after being formed by Ms Ferere and her fellow accountant, Alison Treco. Focused on providing accounting and financial advice to local and international clients, it specialised in corporate recovery, corporate finance, internal audit and company administration.

The business was initially based at One Montague Place in eastern New Providence, overlooking Montague Beach. Ms Ferere was a former senior accountant and partner at Ernst & Young Bahamas (EY), where she spent 26 years, while Ms Treco, FT Consultants' vice-president and director, spent 20 years with KPMG Bahamas in similar positions until 2004.

Providence Advisors was formed just six months after FT Consultants when Mr Kerr created it from S G Hambros Bank & Trust's domestic financial services operations on June 30, 2006. Its major clients, then and now, include the Bahamian hotel industry pension funds.

Mr Kerr and Providence Advisors also teamed with a consortium of Bahamian waste services providers to successfully win the bidding contest to take over and manage the New Providence landfall. They are seeking to ultimately transform it into an entity called the New Providence Ecology Park, and solve the site's decades-long environmental and health hazards.