The additional public offering (APO) by the NCB Financial Group opens this Monday and its lead principal and chairman Michael Lee-Chin is calling on all Jamaicans to own a stake in the country’s largest financial entity.

NCB is looking to raise around J$5 billion. The APO will see 78.5 million shares on offer at J$65 a share with a reserve pool for NCB employees at J$58.50 a share

Lee Chin is passionate about Jamaicans owning assets and by doing so participate in wealth creation. Ownership here is paramount.

He believes that with Jamaicans owning NCB shares right beside him, they can own a piece of Jamaica.

This enlightenment came when he was being presented with an award by Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem back in 2006. Then, the presiding pastor Dr Reverend Calvin Butts pointed out that over the last 40 years, there hadn’t been a high school built in Harlem by the federal, state or mkunicipal government. The only high school built in that time frame was by the Abyssinian Baptist Church which has been at the heart of gentrification in Harlem.

“Now that Harlem has been gentrified and has a fantastic location abutting Central Park and close to the heart of Manhattan, people are coming into Harlem and buying up real estate which has seen house prices go up tenfold in ten years. Unfortunately, the Harlemites are not traditional asset holders, they are renters, so they did not benefit from this asset accretion. In fact, they were displaced, they couldn’t afford to live in Harlem.

“When I heard that, I thought, here we are working hard to gentrify Jamaica which is in close proximity to the most powerful nation in the world. Once Jamaica becomes gentrified, Americans will come in and buy up Jamaica, displacing many of its people. Real estate prices will appreciate

“I said to myself, my gosh, this is a microcosm of what will happen in Jamaica. I vowed that every time I came to Jamaica, I would talk about the importance of Jamaicans owning assets. Why? Because when gentrification and asset accretion happens, wealth is created from kings to cabbages,” said the NCB boss.

The way he sees it, this dovetails into what NCB is all about. The highest value-added a financial institution like NCB can give is to create wealth for individuals, its staff and the Government, thus the mantra ’NCB, Building a Better Jamaica’. 

Lee-Chin continued, “ Banking and insurance are in effect commodities and as commodities we have to be brilliant at the basics. We have to be efficient. We are the largest banking institution in Jamaica with scale. We have to be brilliant at delivering great customer service. We have to have great governance.

“But those are basics. We have to be like a utility – always on and operating at 99.9 per cent with efficiency, governance and customer experience at the lowest cost. This is the vision and passion of NCB.“