SOME 80 MILLION shares in local life insurance giant Life of Jamaica (LoJ) were sold across the trading floor of the Jamaica Stock Exchange yesterday at $4.50 per share.
The lead broker of this transaction was Dehring Bunting & Golding (DB&G) who won the bid ahead of two other competitors. The Gleaner understands that the shares were snapped up by an assortment of pension funds, other retail investors and individuals all seeing LoJ as a good stock to have in their portfolios. The shares were held by FINSAC as a result of its measures to rehabilitate LoJ when it ran into trouble during the financial sector meltown of the late nineties.
In July of last year the Micheal Lee-Chin-led AIC acquired 200 million shares in LoJ from the holding company of Insurance Company of the West Indies (ICWI). According to ICWI chairman Dennis Lalor, the ICWI Group held approximately 220 million shares in LoJ and with the sale to AIC is now left with a 40 million shareholding in the insurance company which was acquired by Barbados Mutual in 2001.
SHARES
LoJ, a subsidiary of Sagicor has a shareholding of 3 billion with 2.5 billion shares on the market. Before LoJ acquired the shares of Island Life it had 1.6 billion shares on the market.
In October of last year The Gleaner reported that AIC offered $2.95 per share at a time when the shares were trading at $3.49. Yesterday those 80 million shares were sold for $4.50. Under the management of Maxine MacLure the company posted pre tax profits of $830 million.
Speaking at a Mayberry Investors Forum at the end of last year she said: "We intend to reach a target profit of $1 billion this year. In 2001 LoJ made a profit of $232 million. Last year saw a 258 per cent increase in pre-tax profits with the company posting a figure of $830 million."
A target return on equity of 30 per cent has been set and she believes it will be attained during the course of this year.
Yesterday, LoJ's share price closed at a new high of $5.06.
- AE
