Duprey praises Fifi as a visionary

Published: Thursday August 7, 2008

Chairman of the CL Financial Group, Lawrence Duprey, yesterday that Anthony Fifi, who is soon to retire from the helm of the Home Construction Limited (HCL) Group is responsible for conceptualising and executing the One Woodbrook Place towers.

“As we look out here, we see towers. Anthony is basically responsible for the conceptualisation and execution of those towers,” said Duprey, looking out from CL Financial’s glassed private box at the Queen’s Park Oval, St Clair, to the unfinished towers dominating some trees and commercial buildings.

“Those towers will soon be completed and stand proud, not only for our company, but for our country. There are more towers to come.”

Duprey said Fifi was “one of the key contributors to the development of CL Financial and HCL and has come to the end of his career, or should I say, one phase of his career.

“We believe it is an important event in the business life of T&T and maybe the Caribbean.

“Today, we want to recognise Anthony’s contribution, not only to our group, but to the contribution he has made in improving shelter and accommodation in our part of the world,” Duprey said.

In talking about CL Financial and HCL wanting to provide buildings and good, modern cities for Trinidadians, Duprey said Fifi will join “a group of senior advisors” created to advise directors and managers to more effectively achieve their goals.

Duprey said senior people like Fifi and Angostura director Patrick Patel have “intellectual capital” that the group doesn’t want to throw away, “so when an executive who has been successful and has intellectual capital, retires, they then move up into an advisory system.”

Duprey said Fifi will move onto a “planning and actualisation platform.

“He will join me, like I have done in the petrochemical sector, in creating new shelter that is innovative and keeping us globally competitive.”

Duprey was speaking at a press conference held to discuss Fifi’s retirement, which was announced last week.

The new management team of HCL will be chief executive officer Richard Le Blanc, and chief operations officer Hayden Ameerali, both of whom attended the press conference.

Fifi, who said he’d become a director at CL Financial with responsibility for real estate development, said that compared to other projects in T&T, One Woodbrook Place (OWP) leads the pack in terms of timing.

He said OWP is consistent in its performance compared to work being done on the Waterfront Project.

OWP, which is overbudget by 40 per cent and overdue by 18 months, comprises 16 acres of underground parking.

“That is no easy thing,” Fifi said.

Fifi said present circumstances have slowed things down.


Source: Trinidad Guardian Newsapers
http://www.guardian.co.tt/business1.html