Once the darling of Corporate Jamaica and a champion of investors in the country, the halo has come off the mercurial Michael Lee Chin.
Jamaica’s investing community are giving the Jamaican -Canadian billionaire a hard time and one suspects this is coming largely from disgruntled NCB shareholders.
The bile and venom on social media is vicious. This is hard to square with the man who took a battered and beleaguered NCB bank, turned it around with local management and saw to it that handsome dividends were paid out.
When the good times rolled, Lee Chin was hailed as the King of Jamaica, we, at last, had our very own business titan who could go up against the world’s best
Lee Chin’s investments in Jamaica spanned financial services, media, medical facilities, tourism, real estate holdings, ports, and coffee production – his was a wide portfolio. He demonstrated belief and faith in his own country, the return of the native as it were.
This was commendable, particularly following the years of FINSAC which made many Jamaicans risk-averse and saw foreigners swooping on assets and taking the plunge. Lee Chin was a pathfinder and a hero for a new generation of Jamaican entrepreneurs who in many respects he returned to them their MoJo.
Over the next two decades, Lee Chin took NCB from off the floor to become Jamaica’s largest and most profitable banking entity, surpassing Scotia.
Everyone marvelled, everyone loves a winner – until you hit a bump in the road.
The acquisition of Trinidad’s Guardian Insurance Group, headquartered in Trinidad, made a lot of sense. To have the largest indigenous banking entity and the largest insurance group made Lee Chin the number one player in the region- a financial services powerhouse – the King of the North and the King of the South.
Then came COVID which saw NCB’s performance slowing down and the decision taken not to pay dividends. NCB retreated to the safe haven of retained earnings while Lee Chin remained holed up in Canada
Patrick Hylton and Dennis Cohen have done a fine job leading the C-Suite Officer corp at NCB. They transformed a moribund bank into a market leader in twenty years. How they did so should be studied in the coming years.
Over the last few weeks, detractors point to NCB’s shortcomings, the shine has rubbed off the NCB ball and it may be time for a change of its senior management team.
As Lee Chin has said on several occasions, life is not linear, one will encounter disappointments.
Everyone marvelled, everyone loves a winner – until you hit a bump in the road.
Unaudited accounts for the 6 months ended March 31, 2023, reveals NCB’s operating income fell by 12 per cent to J$61.2 billion when compared to the same period last year ($69.3 billion), spelling a $8.1 billion drop. This was due in the main to its LHP insurance segment and in particular the effects of a one-off actuarial adjustment.
Consolidated net profit attributable to stockholders totalled J$4.2 billion, a decrease of J$6.2 billion or 59 per cent from the same period in the prior year.
This is a result one doesn’t associate with NCB.
Compounding matters further, was NCB again did not pay a dividend much to the chagrin of shareholders who have had to go bone dry for the last two years. The share price is at $66.90, half what it was just two years ago.
NCB, the jewel in Lee Chin’s crown has some work to do to get out of this hole.
What has to be noted here is a confluence of events which have caused many to give Lee Chin the side eye.
In the midst of NCB’s continuing slide, he sold assets. He had already sold positions in Medical Associates and Kingston Wharves . More recently came the sale of Reggae Beach to Paul Simpson, CVM to Oliver McIntosh, his splendid yacht Ahpo for US$362 million, his home in the Cayman Islands, and the magnificent waterfront residency in Port Antonio to Adam Stewart.
Many Jamaicans took note and wondered what is going on here.
Veranda talk was abuzz, speculation became fever pitch. Had Lee Chin lost his golden touch?
Then came the news that he would be stepping away from NCB for a while with a statement that read he would be taking a leave of absence effective immediately from the boards of NCB and Guardian Holdings to allow him to focus on certain pressing business and personal matters.
This statement was ill-advised and should have been handled with more craft.
On its release, it sent shock waves throughout Jamaica. Musings and conjecture were everywhere. What could lead Lee Chin to make this announcement? What would happen to an already traumatised share price?
NCB hastily sought to allay fears.
People started talking, bringing up the dismal failure of 5 in 4, NCB’s inability to pay dividends for over two years, questioning whether Lee Chin was over-leveraged, once where he raked in US$20 million a year from dividends, he now was taking hits.
People only love you when you are winning, especially your own.
One is reminded of the Frank Sinatra song, “ That’s Life”
“That’s Life, that’s what all the people say
You’re riding high in April, shot down in May,
But I know I’m going to change that tune
When I’m back on top in June.”
In other words, life is not linear.
Exacerbating matters further was the announcement that 22,708,700 shares of NCB Financial Group were sold earlier this month for J$1.54 billion believed to be by a party connected to Lee Chin.
This sent people into apoplexy. Mike Lee Chin was selling everything including the kitchen sink and the dog bowl. What the hell is going on? What’s this all about?
The PSOJ hosted a corporate lyme earlier this week in Hope Gardens, and Lee Chin was all the talk.
Speculation, speculation, speculation.
Why is he so fixated on oncology and nuclear energy when NCB was in so much trouble and he is being forced to dispose of assets?
For those who took the trouble to listen, Lee Chin has explained why he is concentrating on these two areas.
The way he sees it, baby boomers have made money and done well and the primary issue confronting them now is living longer, well beyond retirement. Cancer has become more prevalent and to be able to combat it will be the achievement of a lifetime. In Jamaica, we have lost so many with Jamaican hospitals being a place where one goes to die, not to recover.
Fossil fuels pose a threat to the environment and are a finite energy resource. Nuclear energy is a boon, especially to developing economies like Jamaica which faces the prospect of paying over US$2 billion a year for oil.
Lee Chin still sees the big picture. After more than 40 years in financial services, he is switching lanes, painting on a grander canvas, looking beyond the horizon.
His vision may be incomprehensible to many here in little Jamaica, particularly those looking forward to their next dividend payment.
This new frontier will take plenty of capital, and someone bold enough to stick to the task at hand. Michael Lee Chin at 72 may see this at his last mission having beaten the odds time and time again. He remains undaunted, undeterred. He is now living by the words of Tennyson, “To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.”
If Lee Chin can score a victory here, it would be unprecedented. Jamaica’s famous sons tend to come from the world of sport and entertainment, we readily cite Bob Marley and Usain Bolt.
This is an altogether different level. A Jamaican business leader looking to better humankind, one willing to step into yet another arena. One prepared to go where no Jamaican has gone before and take on the perils of this world
Frank Sinatra is still playing in Michael Lee Chin’s head – “ Some people get their kicks stomping on a dream, but I don’t let it get me down, coz this fine old world, keeps spinning around.”
