Gov­ern­ment achieved its ob­jec­tive yes­ter­day of elect­ing sev­en of its nom­i­nees to serve as di­rec­tors on the board of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL), the largest fi­nan­cial ser­vices com­pa­ny in the Caribbean re­gion.

The sev­en new Gov­ern­ment-nom­i­nat­ed di­rec­tors of RFHL now con­sti­tute a ma­jor­i­ty of the com­pa­ny’s 13-mem­ber board and were elect­ed by a ma­jor­i­ty of votes at the bank’s an­nu­al meet­ing at Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain.

The sev­en di­rec­tors in­clude Nali­ni Bansee, Dr Tim­o­thy Af­fon­so and Yash­mid Kara­math, who were first elect­ed to the board with ef­fect from Oc­to­ber 14. They were re­quired to re­tire from the board by ro­ta­tion and of­fer them­selves for re-elec­tion. The three di­rec­tors were elect­ed for a three-year term.

The Gov­ern­ment al­so nom­i­nat­ed four oth­er di­rec­tors to serve on the RFHL board. Dr Pa­tri­cia Mo­hammed, Rhion Karim, Dr San­dra Sookram and Gre­go­ry Ar­mor­er were al­so elect­ed to the RFHL board by a ma­jor­i­ty of votes.

The Gov­ern­ment con­trols a ma­jor­i­ty stake in RFHL through three blocks of shares:

• ↓Whol­ly State-owned Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund Hold­ing Com­pa­ny (NIF), owns 49,021,779 RFHL shares equal to 29.92 per cent of the com­pa­ny;

• ↓Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board owns 30,811,955 RFHL shares amount­ing to 18.81 per cent of the group; and

• ↓Cor­po­ra­tion Sole owns 4,430,161 shares in the bank, amount­ing to 2.70 per cent.

In to­tal, the three en­ti­ties own 84,263,895 shares, which is 51.43 per cent of the group.

In the 2026 bud­get, de­liv­ered on Oc­to­ber 13, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo linked the Gov­ern­ment’s de­sire to take con­trol of the board of RFHL to un­fair prac­tices in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of for­eign ex­change at ma­jor com­mer­cial banks and the Ex­im­bank.

“We will en­sure that pro­duc­tive sec­tors have ac­cess to for­eign ex­change,” Tan­coo said, adding, “We have in­stalled new boards at First Cit­i­zens Bank and the Ex­im­bank, and we will move to in­stall a ma­jor­i­ty of di­rec­tors at Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd (RFHL).”

Dur­ing the ques­tion and an­swer pe­ri­od at the an­nu­al meet­ing, RFHL share­hold­er Pe­ter Per­me­ll asked the board if it had re­ceived le­gal ad­vice on the is­sue of whether the takeover code has been trig­gered by Gov­ern­ment cross­ing the 30 per cent thresh­old in the code. When the RFHL shares owned by NIF (29.92 per cent) and Cor­po­ra­tion Sole (2.70 per cent) are added to­geth­er, the re­sult ex­ceeds 30 per cent, he point­ed out.

At the meet­ing, an­oth­er share­hold­er point­ed out to RFHL pres­i­dent and CEO, Nigel Bap­tiste, that he turns 60 in 2026, and asked him if he in­tend­ed to re­tire when he reach­es that age.

“The bank’s re­tire­ment age is 60,” Bap­tiste said.

RFHL chair­man, Vin­cent Pereira, al­so an­nounced that he is re­tir­ing from the board at the end of yes­ter­day’s meet­ing.