SAGICOR FINANCIAL CORPORATION and the Pan Caribbean Financial Services Group can lose up to US$5.7 million on investments held with troubled United States banks.

The conglomerate gave this information to the regional stock market on Friday, the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper reported.

Sagicor Financial told the Jamaica Stock Exchange that its exposure to firms "known to be in financial distress" was US$9.4 million, or a mere 0.332 per cent of its total investments of US$2.8 billion.

"The company's estimate of projected losses and impairment of capital is US$5.7 million," said Sagicor in the filing, posted by the stock exchange after the end of trading.

That figure is less than one quarter of one per cent of its overall financial investment. Of the projected loss, Sagicor said that it had realised US$2.1 million in one bank and was monitoring the broader situation closely. Sagicor is the first regional group to have publicly given figures of the impact on it of the turmoil in the United States financial markets.

Meanwhile, United States President George W Bush quickly signed into law a far-reaching US$700 billion bill to bail out the tottering financial industry, calling it "essential to helping America's economy" weather the storm.