Barita Shareholders Vote to Form the Barita Financial Group

Paul Simpson, Group President and CEO for Corner Stone Investments Company and Deputy Chairman for Barita Investments (left) | Mark Myers, Chairman of Barita and Cornerstone (right).

Shareholders of Barita Investments Limited have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a proposal to form a new holding company, the Barita Financial Group Limited, BFGL.

The new proposed company will amalgamate several Barita connected companies as subsidiaries of the BFGL.

A publication on the website of the Jamaica Stock Exchange on Monday confirmed the development.

The JSE says the arrangement would result in Cornerstone Trust and Merchant Bank Limited, CTMB, Barita, and Barita’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Barita Unit Trusts Management Company Limited, becoming subsidiaries of BFGL.

Eighty-one per cent of Barita’s shareholders voted in favour of the proposal during an Extraordinary General Meeting at the Spanish Court Hotel on Monday, January 20.

The JSE reported that Barita has advised of the preliminary results of the votes cast by the shareholders of Barita at its Extraordinary General Meeting which was held regarding the proposed court sanctioned composite Scheme of Arrangement for the Cornerstone Group.

“These preliminary results indicate the approval of Barita’s shareholders by a majority in number present in person or by proxy (representing 81.87% in value) in favour of the composite Scheme of Arrangement”, the JSE reported.

According to the JSE, further, at an Extraordinary General Meeting of Cornerstone United Holdings Jamaica Limited (the parent company of the merchant bank, CTMB), of even date, the majority in number of its shareholders present in person or by proxy (representing over 95% in value) voted in favour of the composite Scheme of Arrangement.

Speaking to the media after the event, chairman of Barita and Cornerstone, Mark Myers, said he now anticipates no objection from the Bank of Jamaica of Clarien Bank in Bermuda.

Myers reasoned that the amalgamation of the companies is in the national interest.

He noted that all of the shareholders of Cornerstone are 100 per cent Jamaican and are are willing to be creative in developing strategies which will assist the Jamaican economy, while providing hard currency and contribute to the jobs and the Government’s growth agenda.