The silent minority

The history of private shareholding in this country is littered with instances where the interests of private minority shareholders were at best ignored and at worst trampled upon. First we had the nationalisation of the National Bank. These shareholders were defrauded by that same state that was duty bound to protect their interests and today, decades later, they are still waiting for justice.

The Mid-Med privatisation came next. Trading in Mid-Med was suspended for months and this was hardly beneficial for minority shareholders. At the time the EU's directive on takeover of listed companies was not in force so HSBC was in a position to offer a paltry sum for the outstanding shares it did not hold. Thankfully an organisation was created to safeguard the interests of the thousands of minority shareholders.

Then came the state's attempt to sell its BOV shareholding and the ensuing abundance of rumours. This led to much more volatility in BOV's share price than its solid fundamentals would have suggested. BOV has shown time and again that its Maltese management can hold its turf against any foreign competition. The best thing the state could do is to offer its holding to the public, ensuring that at least one major bank remains in Maltese hands and enabling the Maltese public to participate in the bank's continued success. It goes without saying that the National Bank shareholders should be the primary beneficiaries of this exercise.

Finally we had the sale of Maltacom to Tecom. By the time the deal was announced Maltacom's share price had surged to over Lm2 but Tecom managed to secure a majority shareholding for just over Lm1.50 per share. Of particular interest is the fact that this deal was announced just a couple of days before the EU takeover code was enforced by the MFSA and was thus exempt from the provisions of the said code aimed on protecting minority shareholders. The bid for Grand Harbour Marinas by Camper & Nicholson will be subject to this code and the minority shareholders will benefit considerably, unlike their counterparts in Maltacom.

A lot of fuss is being made concerning Maltacom's land in Qawra. The government has always stated that it has an agreement with Tecom to transfer this land back to the state. Disposing of over Lm10 million worth of land is simply not something a serious listed company would agree to before having given exhaustive attention to the interests of all its shareholders. A look at Maltacom's own corporate governance rules will further confirm this.

Things would surely have been different if the stock exchange was truly independent of the state and this can only be secured if the former is privatised, as is the case in most Western and European exchanges. One can only hope that the recent reports in the press do not take much longer to materialise. This might also boost investor confidence and thus channel more public savings into the vital financing of corporate investment, generating more employment and providing wealthy investors with an alternative to the continued rape of our country's landscape.