Turks bank lays off staff in wake of complaints

| 15/03/2011

(CNS): Nine months after opening, InternationalBanking Group (IBG), a subsidiary of Cayman National, is reportedly making redundancies, the Turks & Caicos Sun reports, but the staff is calling for president and chief executive Ivan Browne to be sacked. The newspaper reports that following the receipt of their redundancy notices, the employees complained to The Sun about Browne’s management style, which they alleged has contributed, among other things, to rapidly deteriorating morale among the staff. The redundancies were said to come on the heels of a letter from bank chairman Stuart Dack (CEO of CNC), which revealed that a disciplinary panel found that Browne “exhibited inappropriate behaviour” towards a number of female staffers.

Sources told The Sun that a number of female employees had formally complained about sexual harassment from and by Browne since 2010 and it was these employees that appeared to be facing redundancy. The paper says it has a copy of a letter that Browne wrote to staff in the wake of his own disciplinary hearing warning them about the potential loss of their jobs.

“The general economic conditions have conspired against our original projections and we have no alternative but to now reduce staff members,” the letter states. “In order to achieve sensible economies some functions will now be further supported by our parent company in Grand Cayman and in other cases existing positions will go as work volumes and activity do not justify the role at this time.”

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  1. tim ridley says:

    Cayman National Corporation (CNC) has indeed caused its shareholders a good deal of pain over the last few years, as the current share price shows. In fairness, CNC pretty well reflects the performance of the Cayman Islands and highlights the problems of lack of size and jurisdictional diversification. Worryingly, the recent attempts at diversification outside Cayman, however well intended, seem to lack a sound and coherent strategy; indeed they seem to represent ill-timed opportunism.

  2. Micheal Western says:

     It’s good to see the ladies in T & C standing up for themselves they have more heart than there Cayman counter parts who use this type of advances to get up the corporate ladder.

  3. Chris Johnson says:

    The timing of CNB to open up in the TCI could not be worse and is quite questionable; one wonders if they did a decenr due diligence. One of the other banks in TCI, British Caribbean Bank has incurred losses of $1.5m in the three months ended December 31 2010. They have foreclosed on numerous properties and frequently appoint Receivers as they did in the case of the sister company to Hadshpaltic. Corruption is rampant which is being investigated by 25 lawyers and police sent in by the mother country and apart from tourism everything there is doom and gloom. It was not helped last week when protesters forced the closing of their main airport; one of the protesters being the last Premier.

    • Anonymous says:

      Due Diligence?

      The Cayman National Group of companies have been consistently going downhill since the change of leadership in 2003.   The annual reports do not lie!  As recently as 2009 they had to restate income by over $1million.   As a shareholder I  am still waiting for the matter to be explained therefore I will demand an explanation at Thursday’s AGM.   I will also tell the Board to change the leadership. Enough is enough!!!!!!

      • Anonymous says:

        Leadership at Cayman National? Is this a joke?!

        XXXXX

        All CNC shareholders should flock to the upcoming AGM and demand an explanation from the Board on how this matter has been  / is being handled. In the days of Henry VIII it would surely have been a case of "off with their heads"! All of them.

  4. Libertarian says:

    ***** Had these females made complaints to the Police so investigations can be launched? And is Cayman National going to do something about it, seeing that they subsidies IBG? If they have to make redundancies, maybe CNB should do the reviewing of the staff instead of Browne and IBG heads. I just hate to hear when “sexual harrassment” is being used to economically manipulate people. I have heard of many marriages that have broken up because of instances like this one. Some of the ladies involved are green, just out of school and don’t have the experience to see beyond glitter and charm. I wouldn’t be surprise that the same thing is going on rampantly here in Cayman, which the UN has rated the 5th highest divorce rate in the world. (check it out for yourself).

    • anonymous9 says:

      You must have missed this part of the article;

      “Inside sources told The SUN that a number of female employees had formally complained about sexual harassment from and by Browne since 2010.”