INTERIM Group CEO of the NCB Financial Group Robert Almeida said he is hoping that the conglomerate’s new focus on amalgamating its divisions and subsidiaries to focus on growing wealth for its customers will help to kick-start the company’s long-term growth while giving shareholders a healthy return.

“I tend to think that we can grow in the 10 to 15 per cent range with this new focus and overall in the business,” Almeida told the Jamaica Observer on the sidelines of the NCB Financial Group’s wealth event series at the company’s Phoenix Avenue-based Wellness and Recreational Centre on Monday.

“If we do that, we will be doing about 20 per cent return to investors. In the very short term, we hope to do better, but in the long term we will be able to deliver dividends and grow,” he added.

Almeida said the aim for the NCB Financial Group is “to do wealth differently” after “recalibration, readjustments and resets” in the group for much of the second half of 2023.

“We started 2024, really, really focused on doubling down on anything and everything that has to do with serving you, our customers, a lot better and not the least of that is just doubling down on helping you create wealth,” he continued.

To that end, he said the company has taken the measured approach “by bringing together the right people and putting together the right processes and then focus on delivering that very special purpose of creating wealth.”

He said that means, instead of having its various divisions and subsidiaries operating in silos, all will now move together in tandem with the singular focus of wealth creation percolating throughout the organisation. And its division and subsidiary heads, led by Chairman Michael Lee-Chin, who has taken a more active role in the company, will lead the charge. Those in attendance at the NCB Financial Group wealth event series were introduced to the team led by Lee-Chin and Almeida, but which also includes NCB Jamaica CEO Bruce Bowen, NCB Capital Markets CEO Angus Young, executive vice-president of NCB Jamaica Sheree Martin, head of wealth management at NCB Jamaica Dr Karrian Hepburn Malcolm, acting head of NCB Insurance Agency and Fund Management Limited Antonio Spence, and head of pensions Desmond Johnson. This is the team which Almeida said will collaborate to create wealth for its customers.

“We are bringing together all the disparate parts. We got these component parts of wealth creation. You need insurance to preserve your capital to protect you from shocks. You need to borrow money to invest, you need to be able to conduct business and we’ve got stock brokerage and we’ve got investment banking and we want to actually start realising all the different components of the organisation and bringing it all together with a focus on something that is really important to the customer, which is creating wealth and so we want to unify all of that,” Almeida told the Caribbean Business Report.

“At the end of the day, wealth creation encompasses everything that we do. It will help us grow every single aspect of our business from lending to insurance to pensions to mutual funds to investing products. It helps us grow every single dimensions, but with a positive focus on the customer. So it is something that will continue to keep the business growing because there is no limit to how far wealth can grow. Wealth is infinitely scalable. And so we are not talking about something that is finite, but something that is infinite.”

Bruce Bowen, chief executive officer of NCB Jamaica outlined more about the focus.

“One of the things that we have said is that we need to be more co-ordinated in the way as a group we are helping people to grow wealth. And, because of all of that, we said we need to set up a new wealth management business line and to kind of kick it off and start getting some feedback, we said let’s just get a collection of our important clients…for us to talk about the way we want to change our approach to wealth management and get your feedback on that.”

He said the hiring of Hepburn Malcolm is strategic to moving the company away from operating in silos. Malcolm, who has been with the NCB Financial Group for a little over a month, comes with a long track record of leading sales, in particular wealth management and investment sales teams across the Caribbean. She has worked with Scotiabank for a number of years and launched and led Scotia Investments in Trinidad where she was the general manager. Malcolm also had a stint as head of sales and customer service at Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation, which describes itself as the “leading mutual fund company in the Caribbean.”

“The vision is to approach wealth management from a customer needs perspective,” Malcolm outlined. “Obviously we have a lot of products and services, but we don’t want to just product push, we say alright, we want to make sure we engage the clients in a way where we actually look at where they are actually in their life, and what they actually need. So it’s not just wealth management, because wealth management feels like just managing money,” she continued.

“As head of wealth, it means that I sit in a position where I get to co-ordinate, almost like a conductor of an orchestra, which arm of the business needs to step in and help each client.”