BY SANDRA CHOUTHI

sandy9@ttol.co.tt

The CL Financial Group raised $1 billion in Trinidad to finance its recent acquisition of Jamaican rum manufacturer Lascelles de Mercado & Company Ltd, the producers of world famous Appleton Rum.

“We just raised about $1 billion on the market through the Jamaica acquisition,” said CL Financial chairman Lawrence Duprey last week Wednesday.

He said the money was raised locally because, “Trinidad is liquid. We didn’t have to go out. We have banks, like Corus Bank. We could raise money any time.”

Corus Bank is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

Duprey was speaking in a brief interview at CL Financial’s hospitality suite at the Queen’s Park Oval following a press conference to formally announce the retirement of Anthony Fifi as managing director of the HCL Group, a subsidiary of CL Financial.

The 18-month delay in completing HCL’s signature real estate project, One Woodbrook Place (OWP), was raised at the press conference.

OWP is overbudget by about $400 million.

About the financing of OWP, Duprey said it’s being financed by three banks, again all local: First Citizens, Republic and RBTT, with First Citizens supplying the majority of the funds, followed by Republic.

About the early paying off for Lascelles, de Mercado and Company Ltd, the 73-year-old Duprey said that was done because CL Financial wanted to put Lascelles on its CL Financial global platform “so we can grow it faster.

“That was only a desire for us to grow that faster by integrating it into Angostura much quicker than we had planned to.”

According to CL Financial’s Web site (clfinancial.com), “in addition to Appleton Rum and Wray & Nephew, Lascelles, deMercado and Company Ltd is also involved in general insurance, distribution and merchandise, transportation and real estate.”

Duprey said on the Web site that unification of Lascelles and Angostura will position the Angostura Group as the largest Caribbean rum producer and the fourth largest rum producer in the world.

Duprey was also asked about reports of Angostura being sold to a South African concern named Distell.

“Nah, nah. We weren’t selling. We were buying. We’re into buying mode. It was losing money purposely. In order to grow the company, you have to leverage it, and we leveraged it to grow it.”

According to a July 10 article in the Trinidad Guardian, CL Financial sources had dismissed reports that the Laventille-based alcohol and bitters producer, Angostura, was up for sale to a South African concern named Distell.

The article stated, “The reports of a significant, new transaction that could have a material impact on the Angostura share come amid a lengthy tour of sub-Saharan Africa—including Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa—undertaken by Lawrence Duprey, who is chairman of both CL Financial and Angostura.

“The reports also come in the context of a 16 per cent increase in the price of the Angostura share on the local stock market in the last eight trading days.”

The article quoted Angostura executive director Michael Carballo as saying, “I have not heard any reports that Angostura is up for sale. As far as I know, it is not up for sale. The chairman (Duprey) has not discussed that with me.

“Other sources told the Guardian, however, that a deal with the South African spirits producer was being actively pursued. Carballo said the company was focussing on finalising the acquisition of Jamaican rum conglomerate Lascelles de Mercado by July 28 by paying the Jamaican company’s shareholders US$326 million for an 87 per cent stake.”

Duprey said, “We have some big acquisitions to make externally. We operate outside.”

Of CL Financial’s plan to list on international stock exchanges, Duprey said that ambition is active.

“We have debt now and we are borrowing and it’s building up assets.”

CL Financial looks to tourism, energy

He said where CL Financial owns 80 and 90 per cent of companies, it won’t need to own that, but can reduce its ownership to 50 per cent, or even 30 per cent, and pay its debts.

“So we have a plan, so by 2015, we’ll have about seven companies. They’ll be in London, New York, and the debt-equity ratio will be good. It will be good to withstand the scrutiny of analysis on an annual or quarterly basis, because when you have a listed stock, you’re going to do it. So, the company is in transition.”

Duprey said he has “a couple more acquisitions to make” before CL Financial can be listed internationally.

“I have some more tightening up to do.”

He spoke of “internationalising” the group through the use of systems, applications and products in data processing (SAP).

SAP is the world’s largest inter-enterprise software company. Many corporations, including IBM and Microsoft, use SAP products to run their businesses.

“I can stay in Trinidad and carry on a board meeting in Switzerland. I can stay in Switzerland and carry on a board meeting in Tokyo, so we’ve connected that up.”

Of CL Financial’s investments in Ghana, Duprey said it is looking at tourism and energy prospects.

“We’re looking at a tourism project. We’re looking at energy, of course. And what we would like to do in Africa is to carry the Pt Lisas model, where they take energy, you build plants, you train people, and what we say we do: we accumulate the financial resources of the people, including insurance companies and the banks, we invest it in natural resources, which is oil, cocoa, gas, real estate, to the betterment of human resource because we create good jobs. We give people good homes and we make sure they have sustainable long-term occupations, like in our plants.”

He said Ghanian President John Agyekum Kufuor—who made a state visit to Trinidad in early August—had invited CL Financial to invest in “a fairly large project” near his hometown.

“He has allocated the land. It is going to be an all-inclusive, fairly big project.”

The CL Financial chairman said the tourism project will cost roughly US$5 billion.

“We won’t be doing that alone.”

Duprey said the group is looking for interested Europeans to partner with CL Financial on the project.

“We have spoken to a particular Swiss company, a private equity fund, and Blackstone is very interested in Ghana.”

The Blackstone Group, based in New York, is among the most prestigious private equity and investment banking firms in the world.

He said the interested European parties could fund the project to the tune of US$3 billion.

“We have very good credit. We borrow from about 250 European banks.”