Settlement award will negatively impact Q4′ performance

Mum is the word on the multimillion-dollar settlement award for former NCB Managing Director Patrick Hylton and his deputy, Dennis Cohen, which has been in the making since July this year.

After four months of negotiations, NCB disclosed yesterday that it has arrived at a settlement with Messrs. Hylton and Cohen, paving the way for their formal resignation from the Jamaica-based regional financial group, effective Monday, November 13.

While the settlement package remains a secret, Our Today understands that it is way short of the J$13.8 billion, which was banded about earlier. In a notice published on the website of the Jamaica Stock Exchange, where its shares are traded, NCBFG advised that the related separation package include cash payment and arrangements for the allotment of shares.

Both Hylton and Cohen, who have been working at NCBFG for some 20 years, were summarily booted from the banking group back in July amid growing concerns from shareholders at the fact that the banking group has not given them a dividend in almost three years, and complaints about poor customer service. Their resignation on Monday is from both NCBFG as senior management and as directors of its subsidiaries.

Chairman Michael Lee-Chin and Robert Almeida stepped in July of this year to steady the lilting ship and get the finance house back on track by making Efficiency, Customer Service and Governance (ECG) its operating mantra. Lee-Chin has since declared that a dividend payment will be made before the end of this year.

Q4 performance impacted

NCBFG has put shareholders on alert that the September fourth quarter performance will not be so ‘rosey’ given the magnitude of the settlement.

According to NCBFG, the costs as a result of the related separation arrangements “will have a material impact on the performance of the company, primarily in the forth quarter of the 2023 financial year ended September 30,2023.”

Based on the settlement reached with the former managing director and the deputy, Cohen has now taken up a position with The University of the West Indies. It is not known at this time what Hylton’s next move will be.

It is also unclear what NCB Capital Markets ex-boss Steven Gooden, former head of NCB’s Lynk Vernon James and former head of marketing and digital Nadeem Mathews Blair will do next.

Lee-Chin, in effect, cleared house in one of the most spectacular purges in Jamaica’s corporate history- something akin to Michael Corleone’s getting rid of the heads of the other Four Families.

NCBFG took the opportunity to recognise Hylton and Cohen for their contribution and service to the group and wished them well for the future.