Ashford W. Meikle, Staff Reporter
Head office of FirstCaribbean International Bank (Jamaica) Limited on Knutsford Boulevard in New Kingston. The bank was one of the losers on the JSE last year. - ANDREW SMITH/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
FIRSTCARIBBEAN International Bank (Jamaica) Limited (FCIBJ) will be holding an extraordinary meeting on January 31 at which minority shareholders will be asked to vote on a proposed resolution to increase its number of ordinary shares.
The proposal comes against a recent approval by the bank's board of a US$20 million ($1.3 billion) capital injection by the parent company, FirstCaribbean International Bank Limited, which will be used to grow the bank's operations.
The proposed resolution is to support this capital injection by authorising the directors to allot up to an additional 85 million ordinary shares from the new shares to the parent company.
ADDITIONAL SHARES
The bank says that the additional shares will rank pari parssu (that is, carrying the same weight) with the ordinary stock units of the company.
The Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) agreed and approved the proposed resolution instead of a rights issue. The bank argued that JSE's approval came because of extenuating circumstances which, in this case, saw the parent company injecting the full amount of the required capital.
According to FCIBJ, the aim of the billion dollar capital injection will be to expand the bank's operations locally to increase its current seven per cent share of the retail-banking sector over the next five years.
Specifically, the bank will seek to double its loan portfolio, expand its current branch network as well as increase the number of ATMs islandwide. In a previous interview with this newspaper, managing director of FirstCaribbean, Milton Brady, explained that the bank would be concentrating on expanding its branches in the rural areas
"One of the challenges we face is that we have a limited branch network in Jamaica and so we will target the rural areas. We have to look outside of Kingston for this expansion because it is difficult for people to deposit with you if they have to travel too far to get to you."
