Business News

Bank lists on T&T Stock Exchange

Oct 30, 2009

There should be more local companies listed on the T&T Stock Exchange, said its general manager and chief executive officer, Wainwright Iton. “We do have a serious question to answer about where are our Trinidad and companies. It is a lofty ambition that next year I would like to see a listing once a month,” he said. Iton said this at yesterday’s launch of BCB Holdings Ltd being listed on the T&T Stock Exchange, Nicholas Towers, Port-of-Spain. Iton said the listing of BCB Holdings was only the second for the year, the first being Capital and Credit Financial Group. He said all of the small markets in the Caribbean had some amount of difficulty attracting listings.

“It’s not peculiar to T&T. A lot of it reflects two issues: the whole aspect of control of the company and the question of openness, which is the disclosure of information. In our sphere, people tend to be shy of doing both those things. Yet neither of these things is harmful. In fact, they are actually both beneficial,” he said. Iton said there must be a change in culture of how business was done. “It’s a historical legacy we have. The other thing is we tend to compare ourselves with advanced markets with the New York Stock Exchange and the one in London. Those markets are 200 and 300 years old. This one is 28 years old,” he said. Iton spoke of several initiatives the T&T Stock Exchange is undertaking.

“We are looking at new listings and new products, such as repo transactions for the community and give people the assurance that their investments are secure. We looking at developing the corporate bond market as well as a bind market trading platform,” he said. The T&T Stock Exchange is the leading one in the region, said Lyndon Guiseppi, chief executive officer, BCB Holdings. “We believe that the T&T Stock Exchange is the most liquid in this region and we believe in time to come, there will only be one stock exchange in the Caribbean or only one exchange of significance, and we believe the T&T is that exchange. “We started this process about a year ago. One of the decisions taken was to cross-list on a regional stock exchange. “BCB Holdings is one of the largest companies in the Caribbean and places in the top ten banks in the region. At that time, BCB was not widely known in the Caribbean.

“We thought what better way of promoting the brand than by having it listed on a regional stock exchange. So that was the man impetus in having it listed on the T&T Stock Exchange,” Guiseppi said. He said the bank wanted to be listed on an exchange that was based close to its operations. BCB Holdings is based in Belize.

http://guardian.co.tt/business/business/2009/10/29/bank-lists-tt-stock-exchange



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