Legislative reforms to protect minority shareholders are being actively considered by the Securities Commission of The Bahamas and the Financial Services Consultative Forum’s capital markets committee.
Recommendations to bring the Securities Industry Act “up to date” are being considered by both the capital markets regulator and Forum committee as a part of a wider review of the Bahamian securities industry.
The move to examine whether there are enough legislative safeguards to protect minority investors follows recent controversy over the FirstCaribbean International Bank (Bahamas) rights offering, when the price of the bank’s stock was almost cut in half – falling fromits pre-rights issue price of more than $10 to the $6.10 offering price.
As a result, minority shareholders saw the value of their investments in FirstCaribbean fall substantially, and the aggregate of their stake in the bank set to fall from 9.1 per cent to below 7 per cent once the rights issue is completed.
Source: Neil Hartnell, The Tribune
