Sagicor axes 108 workers
Sagicor, one of the fastest growing insurance and financial services groups in the region, has begun shedding staff as the international recession intensifies.
Some 108 workers will be axed and much more are to be sent home in the coming months.
This new development follows on the heels of the Clico and Stanford debacle and problems with a few financial entities in the region.
Sagicor which has bought some 20 companies, mainly insurance companies, in the Caribbean and the United States where there is the greatest financial turmoil, did not say that it was in trouble. It also has investments in the United Kingdom.
However, observers believe Sagicor might have over-extended itself, having gone on a frenzied buying spree over the past decade. Recently, the Group has had to shed some load, selling five companies.
Sagicor, which began as the Barbados Mutual Life in that island in 1840, employs over 3,000 in 22 countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, and has assets of US$4 billion.
Over the past decade, its acquisitions and mergers bumped assets from US$500 million to the present figure.
In 2002, Barbados Mutual changed its name to Sagicor and is listed in the local stock exchange, the stock exchanges of Barbados and Jamaica and the London Stock Exchange.
Sagicor, in a press advertisement on Friday, acknowledged the fact that “we are in a new economic era, one in which the vast majority of people would not have imagined a decade ago.”
Sagicor gobbled up Nationwide Insurance, a Trinidad and Tobago company, in 1999 and also Life of Barbados, Life of Jamaica and Island Life of Jamaica and Global Life in the Cayman Islands.
Sagicor’s bold acquisition spree extended to the United States where it bought Allnation Insurance Company in Delaware, Travelers Life, Laurel Life and American Founders Life Insurance. It rebranded the last company Sagicor Life U.S.A.
In 2006, it successfully floated a US$150 million bond on the U.S. market and it was listed on the London Stock Exchange the following year.
Sagicor admits that “all these acquisitions would have brought different systems and procedures, organisational structures, executives and staff and while we would have initially eliminated much of the duplication there is still a need to further rationalise our operations.”
However, Sagicor might have also brought itself into trouble since it needed to borrow heavily to fund its acquisitions.
Guardian Life, which also went into acquisitions, found itself in serious difficulties and only managed to steady the ship, six months ago, when it sold its Royal Bank of Canada stock for some TT$2.2 billion.
William Lucie-Smith, a board member of Sagicor, has been very silent about the turbulence in the Group although he has much to say each week in his newspaper column about the state of affairs of the local economy and the problems of Clico and C.L.Financial.
Terrence Martins, RBTT’s Financial Holdings former chief executive officer who was also a former member of the Integrity Commission, is Sagicor’s Chairman.
Board members include Sir Hillary Beckles, Principal of the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI); Trinidadian Andrew Aleong, director of Allbrosco and David Allan, a former Sagicor president of marketing.
The Tntinsider will be keeping an eye on developments in this insurance group.