Blades

Desmond Blades' Seprod Group, whose trading stock was suspended by the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) on Friday, has not yet said when it will file the outstanding financials, the absence of which triggered the JSE's action.

The suspension became effective on Monday, the first trading day of the week.

Both Blades, Seprod's major shareholder and chairman, as well as its managing director, Byron Thompson, were unavailable for comment and company secretary, Sushil K. Jain, said he couldn't address the issue.

"I am not authorised to speak on those matters," he told Wednesday Business.

The JSE website carried no update on Friday's announcement of the suspension by general manager Marlene Street-Forrest.

Under stock exchange rules, a company whose financials are 45 days overdue can have trading in its shares suspended. Seprod's fourth-quarter report was due, at an outside, on February 14.

It is not the first time that the JSE has evoked the rule, but usually it has involved weak, poorly performing companies rather than robust profit makers like Seprod.

While market analysts declined to speak on the record about the JSE's action, there appeared to be support for the move.

"I think it is about time that the regulatory bodies begin to do something about companies that are late," said one senior broker. "I am happy that it has happened because it doesn't matter whether a company is blue chip or not ... Rules are rules.'

- A.W.