“The single transaction that caused the CL Financial Empire to fall,” is how the chairman of the CLICO policyholders group, Peter Permell, describes the billion-dollar purchase of property in Florida referred to as the Green Island Transaction. Now Permell is calling for a forensic inquiry into the billion-dollar deal from Attorney General Anand Ramlogan.
Yesterday Permell, along with representatives from the CLICO policyholders group, met with the Commission of Enquiry’s lone commissioner into the collapse of the Hindu Credit Union and CL Financial, Anthony Colman, in order to discuss the land deal at Winsure Building on Richmond Street in Port of Spain. Yesterday the CLICO policyholders group also held a press conference at St Ann’s Cascadia Hotel and Conference Centre. During the conference, Permell referenced the $295 million purchase of 6,000 acres in Osceola County four years ago in 2008 as being “the most egregious example of mismanagement”.
Permell noted that the price of purchasing the land effectively worked out at around $50,000 per acre. The owners of the land, Roy Partin and his family, were actually willing to sell the land for just $200 million, according to Permell, with the transaction being carried out by the British American Insurance Company Limited, which is a subsidiary (82% owned) of CL Financial. The CL Financial board of directors’ attention was brought to the land deal on 4th September 2008, after which the directors agreed that the future of British American could be at risk.
The executive chairman of CL Financial, Lawrence Duprey, was given authorization to take any necessary steps to correct the transaction, but to no avail. “That particular transaction is the single transaction that one can point to that actually caused those companies to become insolvent,” Permell says.