NCB stock trades hit $13.8b as Hylton and deputy surrender shares
Published:Wednesday | July 14, 2021 | 12:10 AMSteven Jackson/Senior Business Reporter
Some $13.8 billion worth of NCB Financial Group shares traded on Monday, coinciding with top executives surrendering shares at the banking conglomerate.
It was the largest traded volume of NCBFG shares in over two years on the Jamaican stock market. NCB Financial advised that it emanated from an approved change to the compensation arrangements with President and CEO Patrick Hylton and Chief Financial Officer and Deputy CEO Dennis Cohen.
“Each of them agreed to surrender NCBFG shares held pursuant to the preceding compensation arrangement,” NCB Financial said in a market filing posted on Tuesday, while noting that the move resulted in a significant reduction in the shareholding in NCBFG for each executive, both of whom are directors on the banking conglomerate’s board.
NCB Financial is the operator of the country’s largest commercial bank, National Commercial Bank Jamaica, and majority owner of large regional insurance conglomerate Guardian Holdings Limited, which is based in Trinidad & Tobago.
On Monday, some 95.2 million units of NCBFG stock traded, pushing up the share price to $145, but it retreated on Tuesday to $139.18 on volumes of 89,250.
Prior to that, Hylton and Cohen were the third- and seventh-largest shareholders in NCB Financial, with 72.1 million units and 37.58 million units, respectively, up to March 2021. The company is around 60 per cent majority owned or controlled by its chairman, Michael Lee-Chin, through different entities. The top shareholder is AIC Barbados with 1.28 billion units, or 51.7 per cent of NCB Financial’s 2.466 billion issued shares.
The shares surrendered by Hylton and Cohen are now held by a custodian under an existing custodial arrangement. Such shares are held for future distribution to executives, including the top two executives.
NCB Financial is a $1.8-trillion group by assets, and holds $209 billion in equity, making it Jamaica’s largest financial conglomerate. It also generates the most profit. In the three-month period ended March 2021, NCB Financial made $3.4 billion in quarterly profit on revenues of $26 billion.