Caribbean's capital markets in head clash with trading rules

Published: Friday June 6, 2008

CROSS-BORDER transactions in the Caribbean's capital markets are in danger of head-on clashes with trading rules, and the region's securities exchange bodies must act urgently to create a safe space.

That was the forecast with an appended call to action issued by Wainwright Iton, general manager and chief executive officer of the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange Ltd, at last week's Caribbean Investor Conference held at the Hyatt Regency in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Iton described the takeover process involving Barbados Shipping & Trading (BS&T) with bids from Trinidadian conglomerates Neal & Massy Holdings and ANSA McAL as "a horrible regulatory debacle".

He added: "It was a commercial transaction, and commercial transactions ought to be resolved on their own merit; takeovers happen all over the world. It was the whole question of regulatory arbitrage . . . . I don't think it has done our capital market developmental thrust any good. There is no businessman who wants to go through that kind of horrendous nightmare with cost attached," he declared.

Iton, the former general manager of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) continued: "We are going to have to encounter it again because the laws have not been changed. There are still the [same] kind of conflicting legislative provisions."

The takeover of Barbados' biggest pride and industry symbol by Neal & Massy began in May 2007 and ended in March this year, but not before meandering along a corporate highway that featured an aborted merger, cease trade orders, a two-way collision between Neal & Massy and ANSA McAL to acquire BS&T, right of way given to ANSA McAL by Neal & Massy by tendering all its shares, and the simultaneous withdrawal by ANSA McAL of its takeover bid even with a higher offer than Neal & Massy's on the table at the time.


Source: Jamaica Observer
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/Business/html/20080605T220000-0500_136431_OBS_CARIBBEAN_S_CAPITAL_MARKETS_IN_HEAD_CLASH_WITH_TRADING_RULES.asp