Susan Gordon, Business Reporter

Ryland Campbell, chairman of Capital and Credit financial services group. The company is about to go public. - File

Shareholders of Capital and Credit Merchant Bank (CCMB) voted 99.98 per cent approval of the company's plan to delist its common stock and issue preference shares instead.

The plan also calls for shareholders to switch their holdings to ownership of parent company Capital and Credit Financial Group (CCFG), under a scheme that replaces every five CCMB shares with six CCFG ordinary units.

The 42.7 million prefs to be created by the merchant bank will be allotted at a par value of $2 on a one-to-15 basis, replacing the more than 641 CCMB units in issue.

The stamp of approval was given by 67 of 68 shareholders at a special meeting in Kingston Tuesday as endorsement of the new 'scheme of arrangement' being undertaken as part of a broader restructuring of Capital and Credit's group operations.

Essentially, the plan will see the privately owned CCFG, whose largest shareholder is Ryland Campbell, becoming a public company listed on the JSE and the Trinidad exchange.

CCMB will also list its 42.7 million prefs on the two exchanges.

The new arrangement will spread 22.38 per cent ownership of the CCFG among minority interests.

Majority holdings in the group are held by Westar Finance, Westar Group, National Investment Fund and Andrew Cocking.

susan.gordon@gleanerjm.com