Sagicor Financial to officially exit BSE

The Barbados Stock Exchange (BSE) is on the verge of officially losing another equity from its board, as Sagicor Financial Company is preparing to delist from the BSE and the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange.

The company, which has its roots in Barbados but is now owned and controlled by Canadian investors, revealed in its annual report that it was moving to cease trading on the two exchanges.

Trading of Sagicor shares have been suspended on the BSE for more than a year to facilitate the transfer of all the issued and outstanding shares of Sagicor Financial to Alignvest Acquisition II. Shares of Sagicor last traded at $2.80.

With the successful completion of the business combination with Alignvest Acquisition II Corporation on December 5, 2019, the new iteration of Sagicor, known as Sagicor Financial Company Ltd, trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

According to the financial services giant, which operates across 20 markets, it was too early to assess the full impact of its listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange, but its “new stock exchange listing exposed Sagicor to a more liquid equity capital market and brought in over US$450 million of additional capital and new long-term investors to Sagicor”.

In the company’s latest corporate filings for the 2020 financial year ending December 31, 2020, Sagicor reported it had generated net premium income of US $1.40 billion in 2020, which was an increase from the US$ 1.24 billion in 2019.

“Declines in global demand for oil and gas impacted prices and also constrained the Group’s customers. Investment portfolios have been impacted by the widening of credit spreads which resulted in significant fall-off in asset prices, causing a significant reduction in investment income and portfolio management fee income.” While the situation has improved in some parts of the world, particularly in industrialised countries, Sagicor said the situation in the Caribbean remained depressed.

The company said corporate and individual incomes have been negatively affected by the contraction in economic activity.
It said waivers and reduction of fees associated with loans, in addition to the decline in loan volumes due to contraction in economic activity, had also affected corporate performances. (IMC1)