Robert Almeda, AIC director.

Michael Lee Chin's AIC Financial Group doesn't deny that it has had a difficult time finding its footing in Trinidad and Tobago.

But the group rejects that its three years in the east Caribbean market has been shambolic, insisting that a major corporate shake-up is beginning to bear fruit.

"We have been profitable, year-to-date," says AIC director, Robert Almeda, who is overseeing the Trinidad operation from the group's headquarters in Burlington, Canada, until Lee Chin can recruit a new chief executive officer for Port-of-Spain. He, however, declined to give the level of the return.

Moreover, the group says that the trek out of the business recently by several top managers was its doing - part of the effort to streamline the operation and save money.

In Jamaica, as the market digested the reports emanating from Trinidad, National Commercial Bank stock dropped 90 cents off its price on Monday on trades of 575,900 units, and another 10 cents Tuesday when more than 10.7 million of NCBJ shares changed ownership. The stock closed at $22.

Reported in-fighting

AIC has been forced to defend its time in Trinidad following a report Sunday in the island's largest newspaper, the Express, painting Lee Chin's foray into the market as a series of corporate mis-steps, characterised as mounting red ink, regulatory infringes, corporate infighting and an exodus of managers.

"The jubilation and high hopes that accompanied the glitzy Country Club launch of Lee Chin's AIC Financial Group in October 2003 has been followed by a succession of failings," said the story written by the Express' Camini Marajh.

Firm path

It claimed that the Trinidad operation has since its start-up lost over TT$120 million and that Lee Chin, who uses a Barbados-based vehicle for its Caribbean operations, has used his 70 per cent in Jamaica's National commercial Bank as collateral for his borrowings.

In fact, Almeda, who put the Trinidad losses at around TT$100 million, argued this week that rather than floundering, AIC is on a firm and strategic path to recovery.

"We reorganised to focus on sales growth," he said. "Trinidad is a large market and has potential."

In fact, several months ago, Lee Chin - whose entry into the Trinidadian market was initially resisted by the Opposition party - the United National Congress - was aware that his Port-of-Spain business was in need of an overhaul to stem the losses.

Aubyn Hill, who served for two years as chief executive officer of NCB but departed after quarrels with a string of managers, was engaged by his old boss to help engineer a turn-around in Trinidad.

Acted on recommendations

"I looked at the expertise and their results and made my recommendations," Hill told Wednesday Business. "The board acted in the direction of the recommendation given."

The Express story suggested that on entering the Trinidadian market AIC went on an aggressive corporate head hunt, bidding up the price of talent while gaining enemies among its competitors. Apparently, AIC was unable to blend all the expertise it pulled into the business.

What is happening now, according to Almeda, involved "elimination of management layers" and the creation of an institutional and retail sales division to drive business - a primary target being the corporate market.