Richard Byles - The big pond is more fun, more thrilling, more exciting. It gives me more intellectual satisfaction.
Richard Byles admits to an insatiable appetite for bigger profits and growing Sagicor Life Jamaica Limited (SLJ) into an even more successful financial powerhouse.
He prefers, too, to operate on the big stage of leading what he says is one of the country's three largest financial entities by assets and profits - the other two are banks - rather than managing a smaller company of his own.
"The big pond is more fun, more thrilling, more exciting. It gives me more intellectual satisfaction. That's what really excites and drives me."
Describing himself as more of a transformational than entrepreneurial leader, Byles is fixated on shaking things up and doing things better.
"Getting the process right is important. Questioning it, challenging it. Thinking: How can I make the company better every year for shareholders, policyholders and the team of workers and management?," he says
So, despite having been wrong about an earlier forecast in which he ratcheted up the rhetoric, declaring that Sagicor was "staring down the gun barrel of a disastrous year", he has no regrets about having gone on to match in the first nine months, the $4.5 billion net profit Sagicor Life posted for all 12 months of 2008.
"I would rather be wrong by being careful, than to be wrong and pay the price," said the Sagicor Jamaica president and chief executive officer in a Financial Gleaner exclusive interview.
"My job is to try and look ahead."
In the midst of the profit spurt, Byles is still trying to calm agitated employees and trade unions not totally on board with the imposition of a performance-based pay regime, and a company restructuring programme that chopped 100 jobs - including frontline staff and managers.
But the 58-year-old corporate heavyweight appears unperturbed by resistance, and confident that an initiative to transform the workplace culture through positive values-based experiment will soon be fully embraced by all who work for him.
In Byles' approach to management, looking at the organisation through the eyes of the consumer is critical. So, too, is overlaying the process with the right technology and highly trained and motivated people.
Gobbling up rivals
Sagicor's December 2008 acquisition of the Blue Cross Jamaica health insurance portfolio for $1.7 billion, and its purchase of smaller outfits, Industrial Alliance and Guardian Life of the Cayman Islands, gave the profits of the Jamaican company a major boost.
"Total revenue of $21,319.4 million for the year-to-date grew by 47 per cent over the prior year, driven primarily by recent acquisitions, portfolio growth and new products," SLJ said in a statement appended to its September 2009 nine-month earnings report.
But, those results also showed pre-tax profit slowing marginally from $1.76 billion in the June quarter to $1.62 billion in the September quarter.
Byles now says that with third-quarter results showing a slowdown, 2010 will be the year to watch for major financial challenges.
"The year started pretty fast. We are not going to be able to keep that pace."
Fingers are crossed for 2010, he said.
"It may be the year that some of the concerns I expressed (materialise). We have a country and economy that haven't bitten the bullet yet."
But, with the company's operational plan calling for an even better performance next year, Byles is bullish on the role that further acquisitions can play in spurring growth in Jamaica's insurance behemoth.
"Expansion by acquisition is a strategy we have used in Pan Caribbean, Sagicor, and Life of Jamaica (forerunner to Sagicor Life Jamaica)," he said.
"It is a natural process in going forward. There are always new acquisitions to come," he added, but was not inclined to signal what deals are in the pipeline.
Byles is concentrating on streamlining efficiencies within Sagicor's business in Jamaica, staking future profitability on building a competitive advantage, driven by efficiency gains.
Significant investments are to be made in this area in 2010, he said.
The last acquisition, which will be reflected in SLJ's fourth-quarter results, was the additional 33 per cent share purchase in Pan Caribbean in a deal with parent Sagicor Financial Corporation worth $2.53 billion and growing its stake to over 85 per cent.
The rationale, he said, was to reorganise and refocus how Sagicor investments are held in Jamaica, effectively putting all such holdings into SLJ, which is 60 per cent owned by Sagicor Financial.
Byles, who has run Sagicor Life for five years, suggests that his approach to management is results-oriented - always looking ahead to the next accomplishment.
The next step
Richard Byles, president and chief executive officer of Sagicor Life Jamaica Limited. - photo by Huntley Medley
"I don't have a very long term outlook. Wherever I am now I need to do it well and (focus on) what's the next step right after," said the man who landed his first job in the private sector in 1985 running Pan Caribbean Merchant Bank.
He had gone to interview the bank's owner and Chairman of Pan Jam group Maurice Facey, as part of a research assignment for Rita Humphries-Lewin, the veteran stock broker and Byles' former boss, when he worked at the government-owned Jamaica Industrial Development Corporation in the 1970s.
He left the interview with an offer from Facey to run the bank.
"Whenever I am challenged is when I display what I am capable of," Byles said - attempting to explain his success in the corporate world.
Three years later, Facey asked him to head up Pan Jam's group operations, where he said the experience of running the group's insurance outfit, First Life, prepared him for his later job with R. Danny Williams' Life of Jamaica (LOJ).
It was Byles who suggested to Facey that he merge Pan Jam's financial operations with LOJ - a transaction in which the now Sagicor Life boss negotiated the sale of Pan Caribbean and First Life to the insurance company he later headed up in 2004.
Then, the company was earning revenue of $7 billion, which more than doubled to $17 billion by 2008.
Then earnings per share was at 57 cents; but now has now doubled to $1.05.
Back then, the company was worth $71 billion measured by total assets; now it's $118 billion.
And, its net worth has climbed to $15.5 billion, from $6 billion five years ago.
It has been an interesting corporate sojourn for the Jamaica College, University of the West Indies and University of Bradford alumni, who pursued studies in economics, and who, like scores of youth in his time, was influenced by the Black Power movement of the 1960s and took an active interest in radical politics in his early years.
By Byles' own account, a confluence of family, maturity and commitment to his chosen academic discipline precipitated the shift from radical politics to a successful career in corporate finance.
"I am very persistent in doing whatever task I have at hand," he said.
"I have been favoured with good luck and I believe whatever you are doing, you should do it well."
huntley.medley@gleanerjm.com