Dennise Williams, Staff Reporter
HYLTON
"THE VISION remains the same," National Commercial Bank (NCB) Group Managing Director, Patrick Hylton, told investors, as he outlined the direction the bank is to take.
He was presiding over the bank's investment briefing held at The Atrium on December 21. The focus of the investment briefing was to give the analyst community an opportunity to garner greater understanding of the bank's operations.
Last week, Wednesday Business reported the results of for the year ended at September 30, 2004. The bank reported net profits of $3.2 billion, an increase of 15 per cent or $412.3 million over the same period in 2003. After adjusting for substantial one-off gains from equity sales in September 2003, core net profit actually increased by $1.2 billion or 57 per cent.
MEASURE OF SUCCESS
Recently, Aubyn Hill resigned as group managing director, making way for Mr. Hylton to take over the reins of the bank.
"Obviously, some of the things implemented by Mr. Hill have given us a measure of success but we will be tweaking that focus," Mr. Hylton said. "We will especially look at gaining efficiencies from our technological investments in our banking platform."
Another concern expressed was the level of dependency between NCB and its Canadian parent company, mutual fund AIC.
SEPARATE LEGAL ENTITY
"We are a separate legal entity from AIC," he said. "Both institutions operate in different environments. Additionally, at NCB there are very professional staff who run the organisation and we come under heavy regulation by both the Financial Services Commission and the Bank of Jamaica."
He added, "There is no reliance by NCB on AIC for its survival."
One of major ways the bank intends to survive is through diversification of product base - namely, wealth management and insurance.
NCB Insurance Company Limited (NCBIC) Managing Director Ingrid Chambers spoke of a division that is reorganising itself beyond a one-product entity.
"This year we embarked on an aggressive marketing campaign with the launch of two new products - ProVision and OMNI Educator," she said. "However, the original OMNI product continues to be NCB's most profitable brand."
Ms. Chambers noted that her division is currently awaiting regulatory approval to launch a U.S. dollar OMNI product.
And while the insurance division of the bank earned a respectable $371 million after taxes, it was NCB Capital Markets (NCBCM), the wealth management arm that earned an impressive $1.2 billion in after tax profits. NCBCM, was born from the need to re-energise NCB's stalwart stockbrokerage subsidiary, Edward Gayle.
Christopher Williams, managing director of NCBCM stated, "The directors recognised the need to stabilise the relationship of the high net worth clients who took their excess funds from the bank to other brokerage houses," Christopher Williams, managing director of NCBCM stated. "We wanted to stop the flow of funds outside the bank."
In looking at the bank's overall strategy, Mr. Hylton said, "We have decided to focus on people, process efficiency and products to underpin our success as a financial service institution."
