In the early days of Ralph Fonseca’s “Growth Economics”, the so called ‘financial engineer’ would trawl the world looking for financial institutions which would finance the numbskull ideas he would come up with, like Intelco, Mahogany Heights, Los Lagos, the Novelo’s 30 Million Dollar loan, the loans to Arnaldo Pena, the Soybean Project and the countless other multi-million dollar schemes which came during the PUP Mal-administration. In his quest, no doubt guided by the ever-present, omni-present, Lord Ashcroft he was led to institutions like the Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago (RBTT) and the International Bank of Miami, the Royal Merchant Bank, Citicorp Merchant Bank and others. These institutions would willingly lend at extraordinarily high
interest rates of anywhere between 9 and 14 percent.
Our focus in this article is the RBTT and the key players at the time. When Fonseca landed at the doors of this institution he was probably met by Lyndon Guiseppi who held the position of Managing Director of RBTT and more than likely Deputy Managing Director Filippo Alario. In an article published by the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian on August 6th, 2009 it states that “Guiseppi put together several transactions totaling between US$200 and US$300 million in Belize and for the Government of Belize.”
While Guiseppi and Alario were at the bank, the Super-bond was floated and in one report by Seven News just prior to the floating of the bond on January 24 the news station reported that “7NEWS has obtained documents which show that last week Thursday, Financial Secretary Carla Barnett wrote Lyndon Guiseppi, RBTT Managing Director to, “seek a prompt and complete accounting…of that missing two to three million dollars.” She noted that the bank is now saying that, “the balance in the…sinking fund is between 2 and 3 million less than what is stated in the schedules.” 7New’s report continues stating that: “Barnett concludes, “the inescapable conclusion…seems to be that you are holding these funds…while apparently denying to…us that you are doing so”. Dr. Barnett closes by referring to the legal implication of this and again asks Guiseppi to send an accounting. The next day Guiseppi writes and says that an asset out of the sinking fund has become, “impaired”. The issue was somehow resolved with the money not having to be paid for by government. Thereafter the Super-bond floated.
Outside of the Super-bond, Guiseppi and Alario would also have been at RBTT when the bank foreclosed on a loan that Jeoffrey Prosser had with that bank causing him to be unable to pay for BTL thereby causing Ashcroft to once again purchase BTL and also secure for himself the vaunted accommodation agreement.
The case then is that Guiseppi and Alario were once at RBTT and by some appearances could somehow be connected to Ashcroft and Fonseca. Both of them left the bank shortly after the bank was sold to the Royal Bank of Canada when on March 26th 2008, 98.18% of RBTT’s Shareholders voted to sell the bank. At the time, the institution was floundering. Alario left the bank in June of 2008. Guiseppi resigned as managing director of RBTT in May of 2008.
Lo and behold, shortly after their departure, they were scooped up by Ashcroft; it may just be a coincidence or probably preordained but Guiseppi was picked up and appointed as the Chief Executive Officer and as a director of BCBH in July 2008. Alario came on board as Chief Risk Officer at British Caribbean Bank in April 2009. There is no doubt then that a connection can be made between Michael Ashcroft, Ralph Fonseca, Phillipo Alario and Lyndon Guiseppi even if it is just circumstantial.
Now these men are at the helm of the Belize Bank during a troubling time in the bank’s history and it is left to be seen if they’ll be able to pull through or just allow the bank to flounder if only at the bidding of the lord. These men, by any reckoning wreaked havoc on Belize by taking advantage of Belizeans, giving high interest rate loans, the mortgage securitization, and they laughed all the way to the bank. Now they emerge under Belize Bank and they are back for more?
For some perspective, we need to add that the Central Bank of Belize last week released the quarterly financial information of commercial banks in Belize for the quarter ending June 30, 2010. In it under the sub-heading Asset Quality there is a term “Adversely Classified Loans(Net of Specific Reserves)/Loans where it notes that the Belize Bank has an unusually high 31.46%. Two weeks ago we reported that the governor of the Central Bank had noted that there was an “extremely high ratio of non-performing loans to total loans of 28% which is more than five times the prudential benchmark of 5%.” That figure has since gone up and the bank has sought to make itself more viable with the introduction of a GRU unit headed by Filippo Alario.
