Michael Lee Chin (right), chairman of AIC and National Commercial Bank, has rehired Aubyn Hill (at left) to restructure AIC Trinidad. - File

Aubyn Hill, who Michael Lee Chin let go two years ago as CEO of National Commercial Bank (NCB), has been hired by his former boss to lead what Lee Chin hopes will be a turn-around of the ailing Trinidad subsidiary of his AIC Financial Group.

"I selected him for the job because of his experience (and) business acumen," he said of the hire. "... The need is greatest now. AIC Trinidad and Tobago needs strong leadership and Mr. Hill will provide that."

Caribbean foray

Lee Chin, a Jamaican/Canadian billionaire whose AIC is one of Canada's largest fund management company, began a Caribbean foray in 2002, when he bought the Jamaica government's 76 per cent stake in NCB, one of the banks bailed-out by the state during the financial sector collapse of the late 1990s.

Lee Chin followed up by acquiring financial sector and communications technology assets in Barbados, the Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago, including a small merchant bank in Port of Spain.

But apparently the Trinidad and Tobago subsidiary has not performed to expectations, causing Lee Chin to turn to Hill, a former president of Bank of Oman, who he had recruited to head NCB.The Financial Gleaner has learnt that Aubrey Garcia, now at the helm of AIC Trinidad and Tobago, will keep his substantive post and remain a director.

Hill, after two years in the NCB job, left the bank in the wake of tensions with Lee Chin's former right-hand man, Kris Astaphan and set up a business consulting firm, Corporate Strategies Ltd (CSL).

Hill said he will devote most of the next several months to the AIC Trinidad assignment, but had CSL's operation to serve its "very select group of Jamaican clients without any interruption or inconvenience".

Lee Chin said that he would require Hill's service in Trinidad as "as long as it takes to achieve the objective".

"We will do what we have to do to make AIC Trinidad the financial powerhouse it is intended to be," Lee Chin told the Financial Gleaner. "Unfortunately business success is not a linear line upwards, it's how you deal the air pockets along the way."