What is man?

“We didn’t want anyone to be in doubt of what we were offering policyholders because dishonest agents, men who lied, could have destroyed the company.” —Ray Dieffenthaller, a friend of Cyril Duprey. (‘Express’, August 28, 2024.

) The recent passing of Lawrence Duprey, a business titan, should cause us all to pause. A man who strode our corner of the world as a colossus departed in virtual silence. What are the lessons we ought to glean from the CL Financial demise? What is a man in the grand scheme of things? We obtained three important clues worthy of consideration.



Carlos John, his faithful lieutenant, reported, “Regardless of your views, no one dared challenge him. He was the majority shareholder. It would have been corporate suicide to do otherwise.

.. he was confident and invincible.

.. he confided to me: ‘I am the board.

’” (Guardian, August 27, 2024.) In his tribute, Louis Lee Sing spoke of the professionalism of two other lieutenants, Lennox Archer and Mala Gandhi. These two insights need to be balanced to appreciate what may have been happening during the dynamic growth of CL Financial.

In his contribution, Selwyn Cudjoe shed light from the perspective of being a Central Bank board member. He noted, “Amid the charges and counter-charges, it was difficult for the board to obtain CLICO financial records, which would have allowed us to see what was taking place within his company.” This statement was the most significant ­disclosure.

To understand the magnitude of this statement, we need to recognise that CL Financial was a regional financial conglomerate. “The collapse has had spillover effects throughout the entire Caribbean (the 15 Caribbean Community states) except in Jamaica and Haiti, leading to costly government interventions, with the highest gross exposure at 15% of 2009 GDP in the OECS/ECCU region.” (Hunter Monroe, https://www.

elibrary.imf.org ) Jamaica was spared because it had stricter financial legislation after its 1990 debacle.

CL Financial’s approach there was to the rum industry. Both Lee Sing and Cudjoe raised the ­issue of black entrepreneurship and its fate, exemplified by recent events. The topic of black entrepreneurship is worthy.

This approach conflates the lack of essential business awareness by Lawrence Duprey and his executive team. We are better served by separating the two issues to analyse the ­situation. Business has a dark side—failure.

The risk of failure is a constant companion to all entrepreneurs. Every business is susceptible to decline, if not outright failure. In his 2009 book, How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins describes the five stages of companies.

The first stage is hubris, which is born out of ­success. The feeling is, “We are so great; we can do anything!” The second stage is “Undisciplined Growth”. In this stage, the company strays from the creativity and discipline that made it great.

It then starts to stray into areas lacking the requisite expertise or the key positions lacking the right people. The company begins to overreach. The statement reported by Carlos John reflects a similar position as Tyco’s Dennis Kozlowski at the height of that US conglomerate’s success.

As CEO, Kozlowski surrounded himself with executives who did his bidding. He rewarded them handsomely. Greed, a severe lack of corporate governance, and fraudulent actions sent that company to the wall.

Kozlowski was jailed. The Colman Report on the CL Financial collapse is reportedly being reviewed for criminal charges. (Express, December 9, 2023.

) The other unremarked issue is the scramble by persons who invested in the deposit-like products, Flexible Premium Annuities and Executive Flexible Premium Annuities. Credit unions and individual investors throughout the Caribbean were exposed. These products appeared to be a last-ditch effort by CL Financial to hoover up cash to maintain liquidity.

These funds were used to support real estate in the US and the Methanol plant, both high-risk and long-term investments. Short-term assets financed long-term ­illiquid investments. Cudjoe’s comments ­illustrate that CL Financial’s internal accounting systems were ineffective.

It also means the risk-management function was either absent or deficient. As was subsequently learnt, the company could not ­borrow more. Looking at the entire Caribbean region, we understand the interlocking investments better.

The company was collecting funds in one jurisdiction and investing in another. The local and regional regulatory oversight was inadequate for the supervision of that dream. Poor and rich people took losses.

What should we make of this? Macbeth is prescient. “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ And then is heard no more. It is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.

” Should we not consider our hustle? Why do we beat down others when the memories of our lives fade away after our death? What is life? What is truly important? Psalm 90: 12 says, “Teach us to realise the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.” —Noble Philip.