…or dark horse?
Concerns have been raised by accountant-about-town Chris Ram, about the strange transaction announced by Banks DIH – hereafter “Guyana Banks” – in an even stranger advertisement in the papers. It was an “amended” announcement, but no one has seen head nor hair of the original. Was the ad the Guyanese public privy to, altered materially from the first? Shouldn’t it have specified what the need was to “amend” the original – lost in space as it very might have been?
Anyhow, Ram was rightfully more concerned about the substance of the announcement, which was basically about Guyana Banks repurchasing the 15 per cent of its shares held by Barbados Banks. In a transaction going back to 2005, Banks Guyana also bought an equivalent amount of shares in Barbados Banks. While most Guyanese might’ve forgotten this, in addition to launching Banks DIH here, Peter D’Aguiar had formed a mirror Banks in Barbados that was owned by shareholders in that country and ran completely independently. But obviously they maintained fraternal links!
So what was the need for the Barbados and Guyana Banks to buy each other’s shares? Well, at that time Ansa McAl was engaged in what’s termed a “hostile takeover” of Barbados Banks, and Guyana Banks rushed in to play the “White Knight”. In modern corporate affairs, that’s done to “save” the “damsel” company that fears it may be “ravished” by the unwanted advances of the suitor – in this case the rakish Trini conglomerate Ansa.
Guyana Banks refused to sell its shares in Barbados Banks to Ansa, and the latter, unable to obtain a majority of shares, had to concede defeat and retreat to lick its wounds. Fast forward a decade later to December 2015 and we are informed by Guyana Banks that it sold its shares in Barbados Banks to a Brazilian Liquor company and allowed the latter to gain control of Barbados Banks! So much for being a White Knight!!
We guess like most locals, Guyana Banks much preferred the “foreign” (Latin) Brazilian suitor to ravish Barbados Banks, than the Trini Ansa. So much for Caribbean solidarity – but then we’ve always wallowed in self-contempt, nuh? But Ram suggests there might be more in the mortar than the pestle of the Barbados Banks shares. And we now are getting a glimpse of what might’ve really happened.
In the recent repurchase by Guyana Banks of its shares – from what is now essentially a Brazilian Banks – Guyana Banks is paying a premium of 64 per cent of the market price of its shares – a whopping $2.1 billion extra?
Why? Ram and a host of other shareholders – including your humble Eyewitness – wants to know what really went down.
…for Georgetown?
If ever there was a damsel that needed saving by a White Knight from being ravished, it’s the City of Georgetown. From 1994, Hamilton Green worked assiduously to build a power base in Georgetown, since he’d been kicked out from the PNC by Desmond Hoyte. And so it was because of the machinations of Green as his political security ruled uber alles, the Garden City became the “Garbage City”.
But time does move on: we had the PPP ousted and the PNC-led Government rehabilitating Green, while putting him out to a (rich) pasture. However, the successor Gang of Four – led by Green’s Deputy Patricia Chase-Green, intensified the rape of our soiled city to such an extent within the space of months, that citizens realised that the female is the deadlier of the species. Any species… including the “Greens”!
What to do? Well, tomorrow if the City Council’s allowed a secret ballot, Deputy Mayor Sherod Duncan might just rescue the beleaguered city.
The vendors should march to insist on a secret vote!
…loses wind?
One of the highlights of Jordan’s Budget was the “electricity” wind farm of AFC’s financier Lloyd Singh at Hope.
And it’s output’s been already cut by half? Not a good portent for today’s vote!
