Karen's CL shares worth $11.7M

Official records obtained by the Trinidad Guardian show that the 10,410 shares that Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira holds in CL Financial shares were worth $11.7 million at the end of 2007.

That's the last time CL's accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, did an audit of the company's value. The paper said it calculated the net asset value of the minister's shares using the standard method for the valuation of private companies: "assets minus liabilities divided by share capital".

It said CL Financial's total equity was $8.5 billion with 7.5 million issued shares at December 31, 2007, making the net asset value per share $1,129.

If the Guardian's calculations are correct it means that Nunez-Tesheira's shareholding would have been worth $11,752,890 at the end of 2007, although it would have declined in 2008 due to the market crisis.

CL Financial's annual report for 2007 declared a dividend of $1.74 billion and paid a dividend of $3 per share. That would have given the minister $31,230 for her 10,410 shares in the group. The dividend cheque was mailed to shareholders a week before the company’s annual meeting for 2007, which was held at the Hilton Trinidad on January 23, 2009.

CL Chairman wrote to Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams on January 13, formally requesting a loan from the Government to address the liquidity problem the group faced. The day after Williams appraised the minister of CL's financial trouble.

On January 30, 2009 the Central Bank outlined a bailout package for Clico, Clico Investment Bank, British American and CMMB. And on February 2, the Minister of Finance piloted legislation to amend the Central Bank Act and the Insurance Act, in order to legitimise the billion-dollar bailout.

When the legislation came up for debate in the House of Representatives Opposition MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar asked whether the minister acted on insider information to withdraw money from one of CL Financial’s subsidiaries just before the crash.

She did not immediately address the Siparia MP's concerns but later denied that she did anything wrong, explaining that although she withdrew her funds, she had no prior knowledge of CL's difficulties. She did not mention the shares she held in CL Financial.

Nunez-Tesheira subsequently confirmed that she had inherited the shares from her late husband, Russell Tesheira, who was a CLICO salesman. She pointed out that she had declared that inheritance to the Integrity Commission.

Now Persad-Bissessar and opposition Senate leader Wade Mark are on Nunez-Tesheira's case demanding that she either resign or be fired for an alleged conflict of interest. Mark reiterated a call made on Sunday by Persad-Bissessar for the minister's resignation, noting that it is a matter of integrity and precedence in a civilized society.

"Just consider the possibility of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer bailing out Lloyd's of London, only to be discovered that the Chancellor of the Exchequer have shares in Lloyd's of London. He would resign automatically, that is the culture of a civilised society, not a banana republic," Mark said.