Campbell
ALMOST 800,000 additional minority-held shares in FirstCaribbean Interna-tional Bank Jamaica have been swapped for shares in its regional parent com-pany in the bank's extended share offer.
FirstCaribbean Interna-tional has offered one of its shares for every 7.5 shares held in FirstCaribbean Jamaica, with the already extended offer closing last Friday. The parent company has so far acquired 93.3 per cent of the shares in FCIB Jamaica.
"We would like to have acquired more shares," said FIB Jamaica country manager, Raymond Camp-bell. However, he said the acquisition of more than 93 per cent of the shares was still quite substantial.
Some local analysts had publicly urged FirstCaribbean to be more generous in its offer to acquire the 34.35 million shares in FIB Jamaica held by minority share-holders. The local bank has a total of 193.33 million shares.
Based on the profitability of the local bank, the analysts had suggested that FirstCaribbean improve the terms of the share offer.
Up to last Wednesday, the bank had accepted offers to swap 21.4 million minority-held shares. Another 158.98 million shares were already held by FirstCaribbean.
"The directors continue to recommend the exchange offer to shareholders," FIB Jamaica chairman, Michael Mansoor, stated in his chairman's review of the bank's half year results.
FirstCaribbean plans to delist the local institution from the Jamaica Stock Exchange and channel shareholder participation in its regional operation. It needs only 90 per cent of the shares to do so.
