Jul 2007 Financial News

New securities industry group launched

Jul 12, 2007

Securities dealers and brokers around the country have forged a new advocacy and trade group known as the Securities Dealers Association of Trinidad and Tobago (SDATT) that is expected to make a major contribution towards the growth of the capital market.

The group, which is made up of market actors registered with the Trinidad and Tobago Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), held its first annual general meeting on June 29 and elected Managing Director & CEO of Caribbean Money Market Brokers Ltd Ram Ramesh as its president.

Other elected board members include Keston Howell of Sagicor Merchant Ltd. as vice president, Bryan Ramsumair of Onel Financial as secretary, and Ian Narine of Republic Securities as treasurer. Also elected as directors were Denise Hackett of RBTT Merchant Bank, George Shepherd of West Indies Stock Brokers, Sabrina Supersad of Intercommercial Bank, Jo-Ann Ward of First Citizens Bank and Keith King of Firstline Securities.

In a keynote speech at the meeting, SEC Chairman Osbourne Nurse welcomed the new initiative and commended the efforts of the broker dealers in shaping the association.

He called on the group to be a strong voice of advocacy for best practices in the securities industry and urged the members to pay attention to the interests and needs of the general public and in particular the investing public.

"Our market has over the years shown little tendency to grow either in breadth or in depth. I believe that it is very much in the interests of yourselves and of the country that you use your influence and knowledge of the market to encourage the desired growth in the size and quality of the market," said Nurse.

"This includes advocating with the business sector to make more use of the capital markets-both equity and fixed income-to finance their future growth and development," he added.

"I exhort you to set specific goals for doing so with the listed companies, unlisted private sector companies, state enterprises and indeed foreign corporations resident in the country With the levels of liquidity available in the market at the present time, this should be a supremely achievable if challenging task," the SEC boss said.

Nurse pointed out that "there has continued to exist in this market serious public concerns about how our markets operate as reflected in oft-repeated views that there is daily market manipulation and insider trading in the stock market, and that such manipulation is facilitated by the rule that trade of a single share can move market prices by as much as 10 per cent a day the upper limit of daily changes."

"Despite these comments, there is little evidence that complaints were made to the front-line regulator - the Exchange or of how such complaints were handled," he said.

"Some may argue that the Exchange perhaps is slow to identify and report on such contraventions as may perhaps have taken place because of its governance structure in which members and issuers have the greatest weight and the small size of the market and the society," he noted.

"Whatever is the truth - maybe all the comments as indeed figments of people's imagination - the end result is that the level of confidence in the Exchange and the market is far below that which is required to have a robust and growing market," he said.

The SEC chairman added that SDATT "can make a significant impact and contribution to investor confidence and to the buoyancy and vibrancy of the market by ensuring that it addresses the governance issue frontally and squarely."

For his part, SDATT President Ram Ramesh said Trinidad and Tobago is fast emerging as the Pan-Caribbean Financial Centre and as a result it needs to have a developed capital market in which governments and companies can raise capital efficiently through debt and equity instruments; securities are priced properly and traded actively in a transparent manner, and investor confidence in the markets are protected and nurtured.

"We, market players, have a big role to play not only in helping to shape the capital markets but also in ensuring that the appropriate form of governance structure is in place for an orderly conduct and development of the market," Ramesh noted.

"It is our intention that SDATT will ultimately evolve into a Self Regulatory Organisation under the SIA and support the SEC and the Central Bank in regulating the securities market, particularly the bond market," he added.

Source:
Nigel Cumberbatch
The Business Express, Page 26
Wednesday, July 11th 2007

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_business_mag?id=161174105