NASSAU, Bahamas — RoyalStar Assurance and its Trinidadian partner are targeting a Caribbean acquisition that is expected to close before year-end 2019 as part of a regional expansion strategy, The Tribune reported April 23.
Sir Franklyn Wilson, the Bahamian property and casualty insurer’s chairman, told Tribune Business it was seeking to exploit its partnership with Guardian Group – a part-owner of RoyalStar – to diversify and seize Caribbean growth opportunities that will “make a difference to the bottom line”.
Revealing that their acquisition target should “be reflected in the 2019 accounts”, Sir Franklyn added that RoyalStar was determined to escape the “eggs in one basket philosophy” due to the hurricane-prone nature of The Bahamas and wider region.
He added that the insurer’s strategy was “consistent” with that of Sunshine Holdings, majority owner of RoyalStar’s 53.05 percent controlling shareholder, and which is “increasingly seeing itself as a blue chip company from The Bahamas” eyeing Caribbean possibilities of its own.
Speaking after RoyalStar’s 2018 profits increased by 13.51 percent year-over-year, Sir Franklyn identified one such opportunity as Gateway Financial, the distressed mortgage acquisition and restructuring firm, which is already in Turks & Caicos and seeking to expand into another Caribbean jurisdiction he declined to name. http://www.tribune242.com/news/2019/apr/23/royalstar-targeting-caribbean-acquisition/
