First Citizens gets two new directors

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

First Cit­i­zens Hold­ings Ltd share­hold­ers yes­ter­day elect­ed two new di­rec­tors to the board of the ma­jor­i­ty state-owned bank at its an­nu­al meet­ing at the Hilton Trinidad, while ap­prov­ing the com­pa­ny’s au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments and the reap­point­ment of au­di­tors.

The new di­rec­tors are Anil Av­ery Bridglal and Maris­sa Al­lum.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia af­ter the meet­ing, chair­man Shankar Bidaisee said all res­o­lu­tions placed be­fore share­hold­ers were ap­proved.

“The share­hold­ers ap­proved the au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments, they ap­proved PWC for the next au­dit cy­cle, and they al­so ap­proved the two di­rec­tors,” Bidaisee said.

He de­scribed the meet­ing as smooth and said share­hold­ers ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pro­ceed­ings.

“Con­sis­tent with their rights as share­hold­ers, they posed rel­e­vant ques­tions to man­age­ment and man­age­ment pro­vid­ed an­swers,” Bidaisee stat­ed.

He said dis­cus­sions al­so touched on the bank as­set levy and its im­pact on the group. He not­ed that man­age­ment ex­plained the levy and how it op­er­ates with­in the bank­ing sec­tor.

The chair­man char­ac­terised the meet­ing as large­ly un­event­ful, with share­hold­ers fo­cussing on gov­er­nance is­sues, the bank’s per­for­mance and is­sues af­fect­ing the wider bank­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

All res­o­lu­tions pre­sent­ed to share­hold­ers were car­ried.

First Cit­i­zens Hold­ings Ltd is one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s largest fi­nan­cial ser­vices groups, with op­er­a­tions span­ning com­mer­cial bank­ing, in­vest­ment bank­ing, in­sur­ance and as­set man­age­ment across sev­er­al Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries.