Republic posts $350.5m Q1 profit

Republic Financial Holdings Ltd (RFHL) has posted a $350.5 million profit attributable to shareholders for the first quarter of 2018.

In a release today, the group said this is a $10.5 million, or three per cent improvement over the same period last year.

At December 31, 2018, total assets stood at $72.5 billion, an increase of 3.6 per cent over the total assets at December, 2017 and 2.9 per cent over September, 2018, the bank said. RFHL chairman Ronald Harford, in the release, said the company’s increased profitability continues to be driven by overseas subsidiaries, mainly Guyana. RFHL previously announced the potential acquisition of up to 74.99 per cent of the ordinary shares of Cayman National Corporation Limited (CNC), the parent company of Cayman National Bank. Last November it also agreed to acquire Scotiabank’s banking operations in Guyana, St Maarten and the Eastern Caribbean, including Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

“The current position is that the CNC acquisition is at an advanced stage of the regulatory approval process and we have recently commenced this process for the Scotiabank transaction, in addition to engaging all other relevant stakeholders. Although there are economic challenges in several of our key markets, we believe that the solid performance achieved in this quarter will continue for the remainder of the year,” Harford said.

In 2018, the group made a $1.32 billion profit.