CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCIB) has a public/private partnership (PPP) corporate pipeline worth "well over a billion dollars" in the Caribbean, according to FCIB CEO Rik Parkhill. Parkhill addressed the matter at a press conference ahead of the 2015 CIBC FirstCaribbean Infrastructure Conference in Montego Bay, Jamaica last night. The conference is intended to unlock key principles behind what makes successful PPPs; to identify ways to increase the underlaying credit rating of these projects and to act as a catalyst for infrastructure development, among other things.
CIBC, the parent bank and main shareholder of CIBC FirstCaribbean, has developed a reputation for infrastructure lending, and this is the third FCIB infrastructure conference, the first having been held in The Bahamas. Pressed to give details about the pipeline, Parkhill last night said the projects were across diverse economic sectors and located "all over the region". While he declined to discuss the projects in detail, or even give a country breakdown of the value of projects in the pipeline, he noted that there was significant value in the pipeline in The Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and the Dutch Caribbean. He said Jamaica has among the largest corporate pipelines in the history of the bank.
Parkhill noted that he expects this calendar year to be an active one for PPPs. He said there are a lot of projects that had been "dusted off", and are now in active development.
"I think there is strong evidence that the Caribbean economies have bottomed and are starting to recover," Parkhill said.
Still, FCIB like other banks in the region has taken hits in the past from big deals gone bad. Does that make the bank gun-shy? Irene Markus, the bank's managing director for wholesale banking, insisted that it has not.
"We absolutely remain committed to those sectors we have traditionally banked," she said. "The bar might be a little higher."
In an era of increasing regulation and scrutiny, FCIB Executive Director for Corporate and Investment Banking Beresford Grey cited "political risk" as the biggest challenge to PPPs, citing as examples of political risk an inability to have smooth transitions from one administration to another, or one administration refusing to honor another's deals.
Generally, the Caribbean does not suffer from such risk, Grey said, leaving the only real issue being one of transparency and process. Governments must be committed to PPPs, he said, and must have specific frameworks dedicated to PPP execution.
Parkhill out
Meanwhile, Parkhill confirmed that his time as CEO comes to an end in September. Stressing that he was not being pushed out, he noted that he had actually extended his stay long past his original contracted time. He touted the turnaround in the bank, which he said was evidenced by the last four quarters, which were "highly profitable". The bank has "turned the corner", he said, and "stemmed the tide" on the non-performing loans (NPLs) which have been a plague on the entire regional financial system.
Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian
