BF&M Ltd.'s majority-owned Insurance Corporation of Barbados (ICB) Ltd. is holding talks with the Government of Barbados in a bid to take over the operations of troubled CLICO International Life.

John Wight, president and CEO of BF&M, said that he was contacted by the Ministry of Finance in Barbados last week in his capacity as chairman of ICB to help find a solution for the protection of CLICO's policyholders in Barbados.

BF&M, through a subsidiary company in St.Lucia, owns 51.7 percent of ICB, while the Government of Barbados is a minority shareholder.

Mr. Wight said ICB had first been approached by the Government of Barbados to see if it would work with CLICO towards a solution and the board of directors met this week and agreed to enter into discussions with both parties.

"The CLICO situation is clearly a delicate and critical one for many Caribbean countries," he said.

"Barbados is looking for a solution for the protection of CLICO's many policyholders in Barbados.

"The Prime Minister of Barbados David Thompson yesterday announced that: 'The Insurance Corporation of Barbados Limited is a reputable Barbados insurance company and I believe that seeking wherever possible to pursue private sector options, which move the potential burden from Government to the private sector to ensure that insurance entities remain going concerns, fully-capitalised and with adequate statutory funds, is a desirable option and that is why we thought it would be prudent, through the Minister of Finance, to pursue that particular option in Barbados with respect to CLICO International Life'."

On Sunday, Prime Minister Thompson announced that a Memorandum of Understanding was being drafted for the sale of the company, according to online publication Caribbean360.com.

"We have come to a determination that we would like to see CLICO International Life extracted from the rest of the CLICO Holdings' operations in Barbados," he said.

"ICB Ltd. has agreed to a confidentiality agreement and they will be sitting at the table, hopefully very shortly, with the principals of CLICO. The purpose of the confidentiality agreement is, of course, to ensure that the information that is disclosed during the course of any discussions is not any way compromised."

Mr. Thompson said that ICB was a "reputable Barbadian insurance company", according to the publication, and, therefore, looking to pursue private sector options which move the potential burden from government to the private sector to ensure that the insurance entities keep going, fully capitalised and with adequate statutory funds, was a desirable option.

"That is why we thought it would be prudent through the Ministry of Finance to pursue that particular option in Barbados with respect to CLICO International Life," he said.

The situation surrounding CLICO here has led to leader of the opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP), Mia Mottley, filing a 'no-confidence' motion against Mr. Thompson, according to Caribbean360.com

She claimed Mr. Thompson misled more than 38,000 policyholders when he said that CLICO Barbados was sound, prudently managed and well-regulated, and that Barbadian depositors, investors and holders of insurance policies could be considered safe, it said.

She charged that Mr. Thompson "knew or ought to have known that the Statutory Fund deficit of the company was BDS$93 million (US$46.5 million) at the end of 2007". That fund should contain enough assets to match liabilities in order to protect policyholders.

The Trinidad and Tobago Government bailed out struggling CL Financial Ltd., the parent company of CLICO International Life and Bermuda-based British American Insurance Co. Ltd., as reported in The Royal Gazette last month.