We don’t quite know how to interpret this but it does not look like good news for Colina. You know all of the heartache that the Government went through before it could issue permission to Colina to buy Imperial Life’s business in The Bahamas. Now the management of Imperial Life is in control of Colina. There was a bust up in the boardroom and James Campbell who put the deal together with his 45 per cent stake in the company is out, ousted by the Emmanuel Alexiou and Anthony Ferguson who together have 55 per cent of the company.
Now comes the news that the external auditors are not happy about fees that have been paid to what are called related parties. That means transactions in this publicly traded company with entities that have someone connected to Colina. There is also the question of explaining certain large fee payments. The one that most comes to mind are legal fees charged for example and The Tribune speculates that almost one million dollars may have been paid to a firm in which the principle Mr. Alexiou is a law partner.
The question of related transactions was one of the matters raised by opponents when the deal went through, and the question is whether given the criticisms by the auditors this is not enough to raise the concern of policy holders about how this company is managed. The Minister responsible for Insurance Allyson Gibson should be taking a very eagle eyed approach to this company with millions of dollars of Bahamian pensions riding on this matter.
The Tribune speculated in its story of Friday 22nd July: “Colina’s financial statements are also likely to be seized upon by the company’s critics as proving that Colina Financial Group and its principles are continuing to take large sums out of the insurance company, with the latter helping to prop up the rest of the group in an atmosphere where there is not transparency or disclosure.” The Tribune continued: “Colina’s view is that the company is engaged in a cleaning up exercise on its balance sheet following its recent acquisition spree and bitter feud that saw Mr. Campbell removed from both Colina Financial Group and his position as Colina Holdings President earlier this year”.
The colina auditors in their own words
PriceWaterhouseCoopers had this to say as quoted in The Tribune Friday 22nd July 205 about the financials of Colina:
“Despite having significant arrangements and transactions with related parties, the company does not have adequate procedures in place to ensure that such arrangements and transactions are identified and reported to the Board of Directors on a periodic basis. Consequently the company´s records may not provide sufficient and appropriate detailed information regarding these transactions. Accordingly, we were not able to satisfy ourselves that all related party transactions were properly accounted for and disclosed.”
From: www.bahamasuncensored.com
