Milton Brady will remain in charge in Jamaica until January 2009. - File

Milton Brady, the CEO of FirstCaribbean International Bank's subsidiary in Jamaica, has been promoted to be group managing director for corporate investment banking across the Caribbean and is to join a new eight-member executive management committee (EMC) at the FCIB's headquarters in Barbados.

Move to Barbados

FCIB disclosed Brady's elevation in a statement announcing the EMC and naming the head of the Jamaica operation as the MD for corporate investment banking, but gave no details.

However, an insider at First-Caribbean Jamaica confirmed that Brady would move to Barbados and that the bank was not in the process of recruiting a new boss for the Jamaica subsidiary.

Brady's new appointment became effective November 1, but: "he will continue to work from Jamaica until January," said the insider. "He will stay there until a replacement has been found."

Brady himself was not immediately available for comment. He is travelling within the region.

FCIB was created out of the merger of the Caribbean operations of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commercial (CIBC) and Britain's Barclay's Bank.

However, Barclays has since sold to CIBC its 50 per cent stake in the vehicle that they used to hold their majority ownership in FirstCaribbean, an institution with assets of over US$12 billion.

The Jamaican subsidiary, at the end of July accounted for J$48.57 billion or around $674.6 million of the regional group's asset base.

For the nine month to the end of July, FirstCaribbean Jamaica reported profit of $636.6 million, a mildly decline of the $649 million for the similar period last year, when its full-year profit reached $771 million.

Restructuring

The management restructuring of the FCIB's management, including Brady's promotion and the naming of the eight-member executive management committee, was likely to be part of effort of the parent CIBC to respond to recently muscle-flexing in the Caribbean by its big Canadian competitor, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC).

RBC has acquired RBTT, the Trinidadian-owned Caribbean bank that emerged in the 1980s from Royal Bank's divestment of its operation in Trinidad. RBC, at the same time, sold its business in Jamaica.

RBTT expanded from Trinidad to elsewhere in the eastern Caribbean and into Jamaica, where it now has a substantive presence.

Once finalised, the merged RBC/RBTT operation will eclipse FirstCaribbean to become the largest bank in the Caribbean with assets of US$13 billion.