It was interesting to see about 500,000 LPH shares trade this week. I wonder if they were sold to Emera?

http://www.bse.com.bb/TradingReports/2011/20110225.pdf

yes they where justin

It not that we should be guessing maybe justin just overlooked the daily summary of the trade which indicated it part of the share acquisition sale.

I would assume this part has to do with shares that where declared lost and an application for new certificates where issued. As such they normally take couple weeks to issue to give time for objects. there where listings in papers around the time of the share sale declaring who lost shares.

My curiousity was whether or not we would see more of the private investors sell their shares after the official offer.

Thanks Anthony, I did miss that.

Strong corporate governance and impeccable levels of transparency are important generally and absolutely essential to capital market development. I fully support any and all measures that promote transparency.

Looking at the share prices, the shares of major Jamaican companies seem affordable for a small bajan investor.

Anthony, do you have a sense as to the reason (s) underlying the recent wave of ownership concentration in Barbados, outside of emera?

We it partly due to world/local recession .They are consolidate business expenses and eliminating excess cost. With consolidating mean they will unfortunately be redundancies and with that business cost overall goes down and you maximize profits. In some case they just eliminate a whole lot of paper work deal with shareholders and transfer profits to the main holding corporation. In other case instead of outsource work they now keep everything in house to consolidate expenses. In other case they consolidating the buisness to elminiate sectors that are not profitable. In the end i see it mainly cost saving measures across the board. In emera case i think they saw it as a very good buy. A profitable company that was trading way below it share worth with a mass of retained earning that could be applied to infrastructure growth if needed.

The main reason you would put shares on the market is if you need investment capital for some project if it could not be raised through a loan or bond sale. Most of those groups don’t need any such finance and i don’t see them offering any shares any time soon. The exceptions being digicel , Williams group which do shares in public domain. William group ( bizzy side ) offers shares as bonus as such builds up employee loyalty in the company and profit sharing. I don’t see them doing any ipo on the bse but i applaud their effort with employees. Digicel international could do cross listing for shares but i don’t see them offering shares for digicel barbados anytime soon.

With it stable and strong currency, social stability and education level, barbados should have a competitive edge in the creation and marketing of these investment vehicles regionally and to the diaspora.

In my opinion financial services need to go far beyond the critical but perpetually threatened offshore financial services we now offer.

As Anthony stated one of the primary reasons a company would offer shares is to raise capital and these companies don’t need to as they are big fish in a small pond with non existent or very limited competitors and a license to print money. Essentially they are privately held with a small number of shareholders and can access financing simply by making a phone call.

That is the nature of business in small countries, some firms/individuals can end up with monopolistic control in some areas.

It is different in other countries where many corporations try to have diverse ownership and access to capital markets when/ if needed.

Recently the LSE & TSE announced plans to merge and although there is some opposition in Canada (over sovereignty and governance issues) many companies particularly in the mining industry are in favour since it provides more exposure of their corporations to millions of European clientele who are also potential investors.

Indeed, and to give resonance to your point the question can be asked, how has this issue factored on the agenda of the current Caricom Heads Summit in Grenada this weekend? Perhaps the politician will say if asked that in the context of CSM discussions the subject would have been touched?

We maybe seeing the beginning of the demerger.

Cable & Wireless, LIME and Demerger

Posted on October 27, 2009 by David| 31 Comments

When Bartel and Cable and Wireless (C&W) consolidated its business some years ago to operate under the one-name C&W it made sense. Back then Bartel managed the local business and Cable and Wireless managed the outbound traffic.  In 2008 when … Continue reading →