By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas needs to implement greater minority investor protection, with the Chamber of Commerce’s chairman arguing that too many were content to “ride along” with the majority.

Gowon Bowe told Tribune Business there had been “little to no agitation” for legislative safeguards to protect minority investors, who had often been happy to be “along for the ride” with the controlling block.

Mr Bowe, a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Bahamas accountant and partner, said: “We are investing in all of these IPOs and companies, but there is no agitation for minority investor legislation, so most investors are along for the ride with the controlling block.

“What you have in most of the advanced territories is legislation that says you can’t dictate capitalism. If you own the majority of shares you have the ability to make the majority of the decisions, but there is legislation that says certain things have to have minority approval, in terms of the ability to appoint directors and strategic choices to buy assets or sell an asset.

“What they do is implement  legislation that says you allow a company to run by capital means and ownership means, but for certain key elements you protect the small man who may not have sufficient shares to hold management, or the Board and other shareholders, accountable.”

Mr Bowe stressed that it was time for the Bahamas to move towards minority investor legislation and into the 21st century.

“In our environment, where we have so many ‘controlling block’ companies, it really is a situation of saying would the minority shareholders agree to elements like management fees and other payments to related parties etc if they had any ability to control that,” he said.

“The main thing is how do we move the pendulum on minority legislation that says we allow ourselves to be 21st century, but we have protecting guidelines in place to make sure someone can’t take advantage of us.”