Business News Big pay day for Christmas Barbados Today16/12/20210214 views Barbadian shareholders in the Insurance Corporation of Barbados Limited (ICBL) who held on to their investments should be experiencing the positive impact of that decision three days before Christmas. That’s when ICBL will make an interim dividend payment to shareholders of five cents per share. Moreover, the company’s directors are promising investors a “more consistent dividend policy” going forward. The National Insurance Scheme (NIS), as well as scores of individual Barbadians and institutions, still hold a substantial number of shares in ICBL. This, even after a bid was made by Hamilton Financial Limited to purchase all the outstanding shares in the insurance company in 2019. News of the interim dividend pay-out also comes after ICBL directors took a decision not to pay shareholders a dividend following the release of the company’s consolidated financial statements at the end of 2020, preferring to remain cautious as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted livelihoods across the island. ICBL trades on the Barbados Stock Exchange and has seen a resurgence in its performance. Hamilton Financial Limited is the majority shareholder with approximately 51.7 per cent interest in ICBL’s issued and outstanding shares. In the financials recently published for the period ending September 30, ICBL’s chairman Joe Poulin said the results for 2021 continued to be strong as “net income grew significantly to $11.0 million for the period. In comparison, for the corresponding period ended September 30, 2020, net income was break-even.” As a result, Poulin, a Canadian multimillionaire, and a long-time investor in Barbados said earnings per share for the 2021 financial year were $0.27 compared to $0.01 for the prior year, and return on equity stood at nine per cent in the current year. According to the company filings, ICBL had net premiums earned during the year of $43.70 million, which was a fall from the $47.61 million for the comparable period in 2020. At the same time, the company was able to reduce its expenditure with total benefits and expenses falling from $60.05 million in 2020 to $58.61 million in 2021. ICBL recorded total assets of $372.3 million, with cash and cash equivalents of $51.1 million and shareholders’ equity of $121.9 million. Poulin explained: “It is noteworthy that prior-year results were significantly impacted by fair-value losses of $3.1 million related to the investment property portfolio. “ICBL continued to generate robust investment income in [the third quarter]. Investment returns of $6.8 million in the quarter increased total investment income to date to $11.6 million. These results were mostly driven by fair-value increases in the underlying investments. “With respect to the company’s insurance operations, gross premiums declined by 3.6 per cent, but claim costs in the current year improved by 9.2 per cent. The company has shown some resilience in the face of the economic uncertainty posed by COVID-19 during this period. It has taken the opportunity to support charitable and non-profit organisations whose programs suffered during this time.” (IMC1)