Jamaican-born billionaire sets up shop in Trinidad & Tobago

Mr. Michael Lee-Chin

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

PORT-Of-SPAIN, Trinidad: Jamaican-born, Canadian billionaire, Mr. Michael Lee-Chin is bringing the National Commercial Bank of Jamaica to the Trinidad & Tobago Stock Exchange by the end of this month. The Trinidad Express reports that Mr. Lee-Chin would not quantify the size of investment his company was considering in Trinidad, but used the CDN$217 million purchase of NCB in Jamaica as a comparison.

The 52-year-old chairman and chief executive of Canada- based AIC, which he turned from a CDN$800,000 mutual fund in 1985 into Canada's largest privately-owned mutual fund company, bought 75 per cent of the 52-branch NCB in 2002 for CDN$214 million, a sum that could be in the ballpark of investment he could start with here, said the paper. NCB shares currently trade around JA$5 per stock unit.

"Trinidad is a wonderful opportunity," the Express quoted Mr. Lee-Chin as saying. "We're looking at what opportunities we could get into and staying open-minded."

He personally owns more than 90 per cent of AIC, giving him a net worth of about CDN$1.7 billion and is ranked by Canadian Business magazine as the 14th wealthiest person in that country. He is also listed as the 303rd wealthiest person in the world, by Forbes magazine.

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