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En JAMAICA | Shakeup at NCB Financial Group - Hylton and Cohen declare no wrong doing
JAMAICA | Shakeup at NCB Financial Group - Hylton and Cohen declare no wrong doing
KINGSTON, Jamaica, July 18, 2023 - The Chief Executive Officer of the NCB Financial Group Limited - NCBFG - Jamaica’s largest financial institution, Patrick Hylton and his Deputy Dennis Cohen have been sent on leave, and from all indications will be replaced as heads of the powerful financial institution.
The company announced in a release on Tuesday that both Hylton and Cohen have, by agreement, proceeded on vacation leave effective immediately for a period of three weeks.
The release stated that “During this period, it is expected that other arrangements will be made for the carrying out of their roles on an interim and then permanent basis,” and for the immediate future, the NCBFG chairman Michael Lee-Chin will carry some executive responsibilities.
“NCBFG appreciates the service of Mr Hylton and Mr Cohen to the NCB Financial Group over the past 20 and 19 years, respectively. During the period of their leadership, the Group has grown to attain and maintain record levels of financial performance,” the company stated.
It added that, “The NCB Financial Group will continue to benefit from its strong overall leadership team, while the financial holding company undergoes the above changes.
That leadership team includes Mr Septimus “Bob” Blake, Chief Executive Officer of National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited (NCBJ) who also oversees NCBJ’s subsidiaries, Mr Ian Chinapoo, Group Chief Executive Officer of Guardian Holdings Limited and Mr Ian Truran, Chief Executive Officer of Clarien Bank Limited.”
The news which shook Jamaica’s financial industry forced Hylton and Cohen to craft a joint media statement noting that the widespread coverage had triggered concerns among persons close to them, including family members, compelling them to make some “clarifying comments.”
“We cannot sit quietly by and allow our integrity to be impugned by speculation and a misinterpretation of the facts and circumstances.” the following is the full text of the Hylton and Cohen release.
Joint Statement by Patrick Hylton and Dennis Cohen
"Ladies and gentlemen we have noted certain comments in the media and wish to make some clarifying comments. In addition, we have been receiving numerous calls and queries from members of the media.
Our first inclination was to ignore these comments but we are being deluged with messages and phone calls from family members, concerned persons internal to NCB, in our local society and from persons overseas.
As you will appreciate we are professionals who have carefully built our careers and our reputation over decades of service in the sector in general and at NCB in particular.
We have established a stellar record of performance over those years which speaks for itself.
We cannot sit quietly by and allow our integrity to be impugned by speculation and a misinterpretation of the facts and circumstances.
Firstly, we have done nothing wrong where our compensation is concerned.
All we have done is accepted payments as approved by the board consequent on our surrender and return to the company of some $13.8 billion of shares which we then owned free and clear in July 2021.
The appropriate stock exchange releases were made at the time and it was indicated that the company would be compensating us over time for this act of surrender and return of the shares.
Earlier this year we were asked to consider amendments to our compensation which would reduce the quantum and we made certain proposals in that regard.
We were asked to take a look again which we did and we recently presented another set of proposals to result in a deferral of a significant portion of our compensation. The board requested that we look at further adjustments which would hit a particular target.
We did so and I verbally shared these proposals with Professor Alvin Wint when he was acting as Chairman.
We were scheduled to discuss them with him on Monday morning. A special board meeting was held on Sunday and we were subsequently informed by Chairman Lee Chin that the board had taken a decision to ask us to go on leave while certain discussions regarding a negotiated separation take place.
We agreed to proceed in this manner. Like so many other persons we have families including siblings, children, friends and professional colleagues.
The feedback some of our families and friends have been getting from some of these news reports has caused them undue concern and distress.
We do not believe this is fair to us or to them in all the circumstances."