NCB Chairman Michael Lee Chin (right) with son Michael Jr. - FILE PHOTOS
WAYNE CHEN, the head of the Super Plus chain of supermarkets, has been named by his brother, the Jamaican/Canadian billion-aire, Michael Lee Chin, to chair the board of the CVM Group, the media company that Lee Chin acquired from Neville Blythe in April.
Another of Lee Chin's close associates and personal friend, Donovan Lewis, the owner of the Ideal Group, is a member of the board, along with his son, Michael Lee Chin Jr., and Robert Almeida, an executive of Lee Chin's Canadian fund management company, AIC.
NO MANAGEMENT SHAKE-UP
Chen yesterday confirmed his appointment and said that there were no immediate plans for a management shake-up at CVM, whose flagship operations are CVM TV and the radio station HOT 102 FM.
"David McBean will remain as general manager and the news operation will remain in place," Chen told Wednesday Business. "In terms of the management and staff, I don't foresee any major changes in the foreseeable future."
Lee Chin's acquisition of CVM was part of a package that included Blythe's UGI Group and its flagship United General Insurance Company, which needed shoring up after losses in recent years impaired its minimum statutory capitalisation.
Lee Chin is reported to have paid $750 million for 80 per cent of UGI, in which Lewis was a minority shareholder.
Lee Chin is believed to have paid Blythe another $250 million for 51 per cent of CVM, leaving the former majority shareholder with a 20 per cent stake.
BOARD RESIGNED
( L - R ) MCBEAN, CHEN and BLYTHE
Following the takeover, the former board resigned providing Lee Chin the opportunity to make his own appointments.
It is expected that minority shareholder Lenny Little-White of the advertising and television and film production company, Mediamix, will remain on the board of CVM Group, as well as Blythe or his nominee.
Wednesday Business sources say that McBean's contract was to have expired in August, but on the basis of Wayne Chen's statement, it is clear that he will maintain a key role in shaping the future of CVM Group.
But it is expected that Lee Chin will also pay close attention to the views of his son, Michael Jr., who has a degree in film production from an American university along with a management degree from the University of Western Ontario.
Lee Chin has bought cable television systems in The Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago, and is a 50 per cent stakeholder in Columbus Communications Group, the company that recently started operating in Jamaica as Flow Communications, providing fibre optic communications services.
Columbus recently acquired a Kingston cable television provider, Sauce Communications, and is in the market for other cable companies in addition to having applied for its own operating licence.
It is believed that Lee Chin's plan is to fashion a Caribbean-wide media network, anchored in technological and production support in Canada, where he has his base.
He had previously sought a hold in Jamaican media via the Radio Jamaica Group in which he acquired more than a 10 per cent stake, but was forced to cut his holding as he was unable to get the rules changed to allow a larger than 10 per cent ownership stake to a single individual or group.
