Scotia Investments Jamaica Ltd (SIJL), subsidiary of the Scotia Group Jamaica Ltd (Scotiabank Group), is in the middle of switching at least three of its top executives, announcing the departure this week of the chief financial officer and two business analytics and product development managers of the asset management firm and brokerage house.

The company is emerging from a challenging year in which the industry saw profit for several houses sink under a retreat from the bond market by clients and other occurrences.

Via notice to the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE), SIJL advised that effective June 30, 2016 Ike Johnson, assistant vice-president, business analytics and product development; Jason Morris, vice-president, business analytics and product development; and Yvonne Pandohie, vice-president and chief financial officer, would be “demitting office to pursue other interests”.

SIJL advised that Michelle Wright will be assuming the role of assistant vice-president and chief financial officer.

Questions sent to Scotia Group on the departures and any reorganisation which may be involved were not answered up to press time.

SIJL is the investment arm of Scotia Group, offering investment products and services including money market Investment products, unit trust and mutual funds, stock brokerage and equity trading services, pension and asset management and cambio services.

The subsidiary is headed by CEO Lissant Mitchell.

For the year ended October 2015, net profit for the company was $1.02 billion which represented a decrease of $824 million over the prior year’s restated profit of $1,848 million.

This Mitchell attributed to diversification away from the repo structure, the increase in the asset tax rate from 0.14 per cent to 0.25 for regulated financial institutions in May 2014, with the full effect of this increase being felt in 2015.

Additionally, he noted in the annual report, regulated firms continued to pay the highest corporate tax rate of 33.33 per cent, relative to other non-regulated firms which pay a lower tax rate.

“The continued higher tax on the industry was compounded by weak underlying growth conditions throughout the year,” he said.

The industry continued to face challenges in the domestic fixed income securities market, related to the illiquid nature of GOJ local currency NDX bonds, Mitchell also outlined.

In addition, the international capital markets in 2015 experienced periodic volatility which dampened investor appetite for various international financial products, and affected some of the company’s business lines.

Six months into the new financial year, for the second quarter ended April 2016, SIJL reported net income of $457.10 million for the period, a marginal increase of $3.93 million or one per cent, when compared with $453.16 million for the period ended April 30, 2015.

Mitchell said the company would continue to aggressively pursue increase in out-turn under each business unit while reducing structural costs.