Word: citibankers
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With his clipped cadences and precise, impatient manner, Seereeram talks like an accountant of the green-eyeshade era. But in his eight years as a merchant banker at Citibank Trinidad, he helped bring the island into the world of structured finance, which involved complex deals that aided Trinidadian businesses in minimizing their tax liabilities and hedging against swings in interest rates. "Citi had the reputation of being innovative, sailing close to the wind and dominating the capital market," says Richard Young, managing director of Scotiabank, a Canadian institution with a division in Trinidad. Seereeram rose to managing director at Citibank...
...started working as a consultant and soon realized that Citibank Trinidad had begun marketing the structured finance instruments that he had developed to such state-owned entities as Trintomar, a joint venture of Petrotrin and NGC, Trinidad's oil and natural-gas authorities. It bothered Seereeram that Citibank was taking complex financial vehicles intended for private companies, in part to reduce their taxes, and selling them to a struggling public entity that at the time paid minimal taxes. He began to investigate, hoping to take a fee from any money recovered. "They were not disclosing the true nature...
...danger of defaulting on a loan to Nissho Iwai, a Japanese company that had financed the project. Three big international lenders submitted proposals to refinance the $61.5 million balance owed to Nissho Iwai. The plans were similar, but with its long history in Trinidad, Citibank emerged as the front runner...
...Citibank proposed a deal in which it would buy Trintomar's accounts receivable (two-year contracts to supply petroleum to Shell and Texaco) for $66 million--a little more than was needed to pay off the Japanese loan. Trintomar agreed in principle and began talks with Citibank to finalize the terms. But then the bank changed the game. In addition to the loan they had been talking about, Citibank wanted to finance a second loan of $96.5 million. It was analogous to someone going to borrow money for a car, and as a condition of the deal, the lender insisted...
...Trintomar agree to these terms? Seereeram and other critics say it was a sort of bait and switch. Citibank met with Trintomar three times in the spring of 1992 to pitch its original $66 million refinancing proposal, and in a letter dated Sept. 9, Trintomar asked for a formal proposal. The next day, Citibank sent a letter outlining the extra $96.5 million loan in several pages of eye-glazing detail. Trintomar officials, thinking the smaller loan was still on the table, kept negotiating. As Trintomar edged closer to default, the managing director of Citibank Trinidad, Suresh Maharaj, turned...