By: Staff Writer
May 17, 2022
A PROVEN regional financier said that they are looking for more opportunities around the Caribbean as they ink $20m deal in The Bahamas.
Johann Heaven, president and chief executive officer of PROVEN Wealth Limited, told Caribbean Magazine Plus that they are “looking for opportunities throughout the Caribbean” to provide financing or leveraging deals for governments.
PROVEN just signed a public private partnership with the government of The Bahamas where the company provided a $20m loan for a housing programme that seeks to build 200 low cost homes.
Mr Heaven also said: “We have a number of ventures across the Caribbean and recently acquired Fidelity bank in Cayman, which was a $30m acquisition and we recently acquired the heritage portfolio throughout the Caribbean which has operations in Bahamas, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and in Jamaica as well. We have our offshore bank in St. Lucia, and our operations in Jamaica presently.
The move to acquire Fidelity Bank, which started last year, supports PROVEN’s vision of being the premier Caribbean and Latin American Private Equity Firm with acquisitions that fits into its Core Banking and Wealth Division business model.
At the time of the Fidelity Cayman acquisition, the bank had total assets of over US$354.1m according to PROVEN.
Mr Heaven also said: “We’re happy to be here in Bahamas and hopefully establishing a more permanent presence here in Bahamas. What PROVEN will be focusing on for the future will be a mixture of both real estate and banking acquisitions. “We have a real estate arm that’s very active across the Caribbean, so there will hopefully be some opportunities on that side for us to look at.”
On PROVEN’s website is says that the company is the Caribbean’s premier Investment Company, built on the solid reputation of providing investors with safe and consistent returns on their investments. The PROVEN investment philosophy was conceptualized and is executed by one of the most experienced and professional teams in the finance and business sector throughout the region. The company’s main objective is to provide shareholders with consistent returns, through a diversified portfolio of regional and international investments.
In February 2010, PROVEN successfully raised equity capital through its fully subscribed private placement of ordinary shares. This was one of the largest private or public US Dollar equity offerings in the history of Caribbean’s capital market. The Company subsequently raised additional capital from a Rights issue in August of the same year. These ordinary shares in the Company were listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange (“JSE”) in August 2011 and were the JSE’s first US Dollar denominated ordinary share listing. In December 2011, J$1 billion was raised through an 8 percent Preference Share Offer. These Preference Shares were subsequently listed on the JSE.