The ANSA Merchant Bank has had a 7.8% reduction in its profit before tax for 2024 compared to the previous year.
The company’s Managing Director Ian De Souza gave a brief overview of the its finances at its Annual General Meeting at the Hyatt Regency on Thursday.
“We see the performance of the various segments. We see banking, general insurance, life insurance and less eliminations. You have profit before tax of let’s say, $185 million compared to $201 million in year 2023.”
ANSA Merchant Bank provides financial services in the banking and insurance sectors.
“We see a reduction; that’s the total assets. You see a reduction there: that is mainly due to us having offloaded some investments that we had in HDC and UDeCOTT. We did so prudently to reduce exposure that we had in these instruments, exposure that was arising as a result of increases in the interest rate environment.”
Mr. De Souza noted that there has been some contraction in the T&T bond market which the company is addressing.
“The sell-off of those assets caused a reduction in profitability because you lost the revenue on the assets, and therefore it tracked all the way down to the profit after tax. Also, we’ve had a contraction in earnings in the corporate and investment banking unit. That is largely as a result of the change in the dynamics by which the sovereign bond, the Trinidad and Tobago sovereign bond market, has been operating.”
The Board of Directors approved a final dividend for 2024 of $1.20 per share to be distributed in May 2025.