Republic records $374m first quarter profit

REPUBLIC FINANCIAL Holdings Ltd recorded a $373.9 million profit for the quarter ending December 31, 2019. This represents a $23.3 million or 6.7 per cent increase over the corresponding quarter last financial year, the region's biggest indigenous financial institution said in a release Thursday.

The bank's total assets stood at $102.1 billion at December 31, 2019, an increase of $29.6 billion or 40.9 per cent over total assets at December 2018. This increase was mainly due to the two acquisitions in 2019 –the acquisition of Cayman National Corporation last March, which added $11.7 billion and the acquisition of Scotiabank’s banking operations in St Maarten and the Eastern Caribbean (Anguilla, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines) on last Novemeber, which added $12.7 billion to the Group’s asset base. The group has also started the process to acquire Scotiabank’s banking operations in British Virgin Islands and is presently engaged with regulators for required approvals.

Group president Nigel Baptiste said via the release that notwithstanding the economic challenges in several of Republic's key markets, he was confident of a solid performance for the balance of the financial year.