Bahamas - FirstCaribbean International Bank

Chairman’s Reviewpolicies. We are also following the basic modelof having an internal operational risk group anda separate internal audit group to ensurecompliance.We regard good governance and regulatorycompliance as a cornerstone of our mission andstrategy and we are confident that we haveallocated the necessary resources to ensuresuccess in this important area.Our PeopleOur people are our most important asset and wehave done our best to ensure that the myriadconcerns of our people are dealt with duringthis period of integration and uncertainty.I am very happy to report that we havefollowed enlightened and, I believe, exemplarypractices in selecting persons to hold seniorpositions in the new bank.Our compensation policies are among the bestin the region and we regard this as acompetitive advantage. Compensation andbenefits are however dependent uponperformance and profitability, and the longterm prosperity of our staff and our bank willonly occur if there is restraint and due regardfor economic realities. Virtually all of our staffare shareholders or will become shareholderswithin the first year of the new bank’soperations.Our people have supported us in a difficult yearand we are grateful to everyone for this.Future OutlookWith respect to the future, it is very clear thatour success is dependent upon our ability tomerge the operations of the two heritage banksefficiently, within our budget for restructuringcosts and the established timeframe.We are optimistic that the integration andtransformation of the bank will take place ontime and within budget, because we havealready done a considerable amount of work inplanning and scheduling the several complexprojects that must be completed. We haveestablished a highly specialised team that isfocused solely on the implementation of theintegration program.I believe that a successful integration with themonetisation of the expected synergies is highlyprobable because of the important work that hasalready been done.A large bank such as ours, however, reflects themacro economic conditions of the economy, sothat real growth depends to a considerableextent on economic development. This is a timeof political and economic uncertainty on aglobal basis and we in the Caribbean and TheBahamas experience the effects of such trendsalmost immediately, as we found out inSeptember 2001.Foreign direct investment continues to be animportant determinant of economic buoyancyand such inflows are most likely to be negativelyimpacted because of global conditions.The future of the Bank will reflect these realtiesbut I am confident that our people will workextremely hard to manage successfully thematters that are within their control and preparewell for the major opportunities, which will nodoubt arise in due course.AppreciationWe have accomplished the combination of twosuccessful and profitable international banks andwe have laid the foundation for the creation of aworld-class financial institution. We are gratefulto the Governments of the Bahamas and theTurks & Caicos Islands, the Central Bank of theBahamas, the Financial Services Commission of18