Cultural Norms Keeps Antigua Off ECSE List

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Business News

Monday, 26 March 2012 02:50

By caribarena news

Antigua St John's - The culture that governs 99.9 percent of businesses in Antigua & Barbuda does not permit for the level of transparency and costs that accompanies public listing and other requirements to secure a place on the Eastern Caribbean Securities Exchange (ECSE).

This is according to Revenue Reform Manager at the Inland Revenue Department Everett Christian.

“The simple answer is that there are not many publicly traded companies in Antigua. And none of those that are publicly traded are listed with the ECSE,” Christian told Caribarena.com. “If you want to trade publicly, then you are going to have to get your prospectus and the other things that you would have to do, and there are costs involved in that.”

He noted that a company has to be listed with the ECSE for people to trade in their shares there, and none of the Antiguan companies has opted to take such a leap.

The Antigua Commercial Bank (ACB), for example, is publicly traded but not listed on the ECSE. Trading is only done domestically. Antigua Brewery was another company traded publicly.

“Part of the problem is that we don't have many publicly traded companies," Christian explained. "Most of the companies in Antigua – 99.9 percent of them – are privately held."

One of Caribarena.com's readers pointed out as “strange” and “interesting” that a decade after the creation of the ECSE, there are no Antiguan companies listed.

The reader cited companies from St Lucia, Grenada, and Dominica as having secured listings and reaping the benefits from the ECSE, while Antigua lags behind. These companies can be statutory or otherwise.

Christian said he does not quite support the argument that the reason 99.9 percent of Antiguan businesses are not public or listed on the ECSE, is because the level of transparency for such a move far exceeds the requirements for a private business.


He believes instead that the “culture” plays a major role.

“I think it is just a matter of the culture, because most of the companies are family owned and the family members prefer to leave it that way, where they own and control the business," he said. "I don't think it is a matter of transparency."

When a company goes public, anyone could buy shares, and such openness would require regularity in financial record supplies, AGMs, and the like. But with a privately owned company, the level of exposure is under the control of few.

“Once you go public and have small shareholders, the requirements are vastly different," Christian said. "But I think it is more a matter of our cultural norms rather than anything else."

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