Benchmark (Bahamas) Limited\uffb4s (BBL) president Julian R. Brown issued a press release in response to a report over the weekend, which not only suggested that the company had been withholding material information from and possibly misleading the market but that a BBL subsidiary was the subject of a lawsuit. BBL is listed on the Bahamas International Stock Exchange (BISX). <\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93At no time were we attempting to mislead or withhold information which could impact the trading activity of our shares,\uff92 Mr. Brown stated. <\/P><\/p>\n
Fidelity Capital Market\uffb4s one of only two market makers (Colina Financial Advisors are the other), in its weekly report stated that Benchmark (Bahamas) Limited (BBL), had \uff93finally published its financial results for the year ending December 31, 2003.\uff92 The report went on to state that \uff93it sent shockwaves throughout the investment community.\uff92 <\/P><\/p>\n
According to Fidelity, BBL \uff93posted net income of $2,429 after establishing a provision for doubtful debts in the amount of $1.48 million. The provision was to cover the \uff93highly probable\uff92 effects of a pending litigation against a BBL subsidiary.<\/P><\/p>\n
It was the failure to disclose this \uff93highly probable\uff92 outcome valued at $1.48 million that, according to the Fidelity market report, had \uff93market participants [are] up in arms as to why this information, material in nature, was kept from the investing public for over eight months.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
Mr. Brown\uffb4s release stated that \uff93for clarification purposes\uff92 Benchmark wished to inform the public \uff93that there is no legal action against it or any of its subsidiaries for US$1.48 million.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
The \uff93apparent confusion\uff92 caused by the delay in publishing its financial statements arose from a series of events that began during the fourth quarter of 2003 and into the first six months of 2004.<\/P><\/p>\n
According to his statement Mr. Brown said that a client owed a BBL subsidiary, Alliance Investment Management Ltd., $1.48 million for trades executed and settled by Alliance for the client\uffb4s account. The client subsequently cancelled the transactions leaving Alliance with a potential loss of $1.48 million.<\/P><\/p>\n
Mr. Brown\uffb4s release stated that as a result, Alliance not only requested \uff93a provision for doubtful debts in its annual accounts for 2003\uff92 but had taken steps to retrieve its money and had \uff93taken out an action against the issuer of the securities and a demand claim against the client.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
Mr. Brown noted that Alliance had been advised by its auditors to take the prudent path by providing \uff93for the full amount owed to it by the client notwithstanding the action which it had taken against the issuer of the securities.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
The Business Journal contacted BISX, executive director Keith Davies and asked him what were the guidelines or rules governing when a company should make its various reports and if any of these had been violated in light of the 8-month delay in publication of BBL\uffb4s financial statements.<\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93Quarterly reports must be reported within three months of the end of the quarter and four months following the end of the fiscal year,\uff92 Mr. Davies explained. \uff93In cases where a company, for whatever reason believes it will be unable to meet those deadlines, it is required to come forward and inform BISX and upon consideration an extension is granted.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
Mr. Davies said that Benchmark had approached BISX giving reasons for its delay and requested an extension.<\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93Our policy is that in cases where there is an extension granted to a company to delay release of its financial statements, we require them to publish a disclosure,\uff92 Mr. Davis said. \uff93In this case we did not. It was our fault. At all times Benchmark observed the rules approached us made their presentation requested and received the extension. We did not ask them, as we should have, to publish a disclosure.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
Mr. Davies expressed concern at the impression created by the report.<\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93The report did leave the impression that the company had acted in a way that would mislead the public,\uff92 he stated. \uff93To ensure we do not have a repeat of this we are tightening up our requirements and making sure this does not happen again.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
The Journal contacted Ms. Velma Miller a market analyst at Fidelity Capital Markets who declined to comment and referred the reporter to a company vice president James Graham who was not available and had not responded by press time. <\/P><\/p>\n
C. E. Huggins, The Bahama Journal<\/B><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At no time were we attempting to mislead or withhold information which could impact the trading activity of our shares,’ Mr. Brown stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}