Local and American commercial banks are chasing after the CL Financial conglomerate, which is now financially broke.

Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams says creditors who are owed millions of dollars by the Lawrence Duprey-led financial group are ’coming now’ for money owed to them, but the Port of Spain-based CL Financial cannot meet its commitments. He agreed that CL Financial’s billion-dollar liabilities exceeded its substantial assets, but stopped just short of saying the insurance and energy conglomerate was flat broke.

’CL Financial now cannot meet its obligations and creditors are coming and they can’t pay them,’ Williams told the Express at the three-day Commonwealth Caribbean Business Media Workshop at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Port of Spain.

All of the country’s commercial banks are owed money from CL Financial and its subsidiary companies in insurance, wealth management and construction.

Other creditors at CL Financial’s doors now include American commercial banks which facilitated financing of the conglomerate’s real estate properties in Florida, USA, Williams said. This has led to Government’s decision to institute a new board of directors to lead CL Financial.

’Creditors have recognised that they need someone to talk to,’ Williams said, adding that this meant reconstituting the board of directors because many of the assets were owned by CL Financial and not insurance subsidiary CLICO, which the Central Bank has already rescued through an injection of about $1 billion earlier this year.

’They will end up with a CL Financial board with Government representatives and four out of seven members of the board will be Government appointed,’ he explained.

Williams could not say who the new board members would be and if current chairman, Duprey, or group finance director, Michael Carballo, would remain at the helm of the CL Financial holdings company. He said based on reports, a decision was expected on the new members soon.