Butterfield Sells Barbados Subsidiary

Tom Burroughes

8 May 2012

Bermuda-headquartered Butterfield, which reported first-quarter figures last week, has announced an agreement to sell its wholly-owned Barbados subsidiary to Trinidad and Tobago-based First Citizens Bank.

The deal, subject to regulatory approval, will complete in the third quarter of this year and comprise gross proceeds, subject to normal adjustments, of $45 million, the firm said in a statement.

The subsidiary, Butterfield Bank (Barbados), provides retail, premium and business banking and lending services, merchant services, and credit and debit card services in Barbados, employing 114 staff at its main office in Carlisle House in central Bridgetown and five additional banking centres across the island.

At the end of last year, the bank had B$617 million ($308 million) of bank assets and customer deposits of B$540 million ($270 million). This bank was set up in 2003 when Butterfield bought the Barbados assets of Mutual Bank of the Caribbean, which at the time was a subsidiary of The Barbados Mutual Life Assurance Society.

First Citizens’ acquisition of Butterfield Bank (Barbados) represents the first acquisitive expansion of its full service banking business outside of its home market of Trinidad and Tobago. The company currently offers investment services in Barbados (as well as St Vincent and St Lucia) through its First Citizens Investment Services subsidiary.

First Citizens has assets of almost $5 billion and equity of over $800 million.

Last week, Butterfield reported that net income in the first three months of the year reached $14.7 million, up by 75.4 per cent on a year before, while the group’s cost-income ratio also improved. Butterfield reported net interest income of $52.1 million, a gain of 9.5 per cent on the same period a year ago.