Category: Publicly traded entities

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On the Line: Caribbean Container Incorporated and Guyana Stockfeeds Incorporated

Introduction
Today we continue our review of the annual reports of two more of the country’s public companies – Caribbean Container Incorporated (CCI) which held its annual general meeting last Friday and the Guyana Stockfeeds Incorporated (Stockfeeds) whose annual general meeting is scheduled for tomorrow. Both these companies are on the Secondary List of the Guyana Association of Securities Companies Incorporated (GASCI), popularly referred to as the Guyana Stock Exchange.

As a result of a challenge in the High Court of Guyana by the government company National Industrial and Commercial Investment Limited (NICIL), a shareholder of the company, the company is not permitted to issue any new shares until the outcome of this matter is fully settled. The regulator, GASCI has suspended trading of the company’s shares until the matter is settled. The shares of neither company, both of which have a dominant shareholder, are actively traded on GASCI with the last trade in the shares of CCI taking place on January 9 of this year while for Stockfeeds there has been no trade since October 27, 2008.

In the case of CCI, the dominant shareholder is a non-public company which goes by the name of Demerara Holdings Inc, which has some 129 million of the 152 million of the issued shares of the company, while in the case of Stockfeeds, Chairman and CEO Robert Badal owns some 35 million while an associate of his owns 25 million of the issued shares. Except for DDL and Banks DIH, the majority interest in all our public companies are held by a single shareholder with the minority shareholders playing a passive role. This raises the issue of the prospects of the survival of our public companies as they are supposed to operate.

CCI
CCI has had a checkered history with ownership changing hands from government to Ansa McAl to Rand Whitney and now Demerara Holdings Inc, which it is believed is in turn owned by CCI’s Executive Chairman Ronald Webster, who has been with the company for decades. In an era when recycling is becoming the buzzword, it is good to see CCI making some strides to sustainability. Its non-executive directors include Dr Elisabeth Ramlal and Mr Frank DeAbreu, one of Guyana’s younger breed of entrepreneurs.

Shares transactions
Shareholders were called upon to ratify the passing of two resolutions which had already received the blessing of the majority shareholder: one dealing with the cancellation of shares and the other with the issue of bonus shares. The first is to cancel 1,500,000 ordinary shares standing in the company’s name resulting from the reacquisition of the said shares. In 1992, these shares were allotted under an Employee Share Purchase Plan and were fully paid for on behalf of the employees via a loan from a financial institution. However, at the time of winding up the said plan, none of the shares allotted were taken up by the intended employees, nor had they settled the outstanding repayments in relation to those shares.

In keeping with the requirements of the Companies Act the directors of the company have decided to cancel these shares and treat them as part of the authorised but unissued shares. According to the company, the transaction should have no effect on the company’s equity but where I have some difficulty is the statement that the Revenue Reserve Account is credited and I doubt that shareholders would have been clearer.

The second resolution is to authorise the issue of 1 bonus share for every 50 shares owned. Bonus shares are not paid for and at one time were very popular in Guyana, particularly with Banks DIH. They have fallen into disuse because they are a kind of artificial transaction with a mere book entry between equity accounts without any increase in the company’s asset value or earnings prospects. Accordingly, if there is one bonus share for every one share in issue, the price per share is halved. However, when the capital market was even less developed than now, the share price never moved, and the ‘bonus” turned out to be a real bonus. Maybe with a bonus issue of one share for every fifty held, there is not going to be much change in the market price.

Financial Summary

Source: Audited financial statements 2011

In 2011, turnover increased by 13.4% from $887 million to just over one billion dollars and earnings before depreciation (EBDA) by 3.3% from $115 million to $119 million. Gross profit at $172 million was up by 19% over 2010’s GP of $145 million. The loss before tax was reduced by 25% from $7 million to $5 million. Without any real discussion, the Chairman attributed the year’s improved performance to good sales and production efficiencies. Gross profit on sales remained constant at 30% and while finance charges fell by $7 million, administrative expenses rose by $14 million, mainly in staff costs.

The company has some $66 million in retained earnings out of which dividends could be paid and may have caused one shareholder to complain to me that as a group they have been receiving nothing by way of dividends from the company. The company also has $43 million in the bank and there must be some reason for the ultra-conservative decision not to pay any dividend. Maybe there is a belief that a bonus of one share for every fifty held will appease the shareholders.

Guyana Stockfeeds Incorporated
The company manufactures and distributes livestock feeds and related products including day-old broiler chicks to both the local and export markets. It also produces parboiled rice for the export market under its “Angel” brand. In the domestic market feed sales grew by 30% while baby chick sales grew by 5% but in the face of competition from Brazilian suppliers of parboiled rice, rice export sales declined by 16%.

Highlights are set out in the table below:

The annual report is not heavy on discussion. As a result the reader is left to scour note 4, Taxation to the financial statements, to determine why a $63 million increase in profit before tax should carry a corresponding $63 million increase in taxes with the result that the after-tax profit in 2011 is marginally less than in 2010. The explanation lies in a higher deferred taxation which in 2010 benefited from a lowering of the applicable tax rate.

The company pays a significant portion of its expenses through a related party ($852 million in 2011) and also pays the related party $30 million as a “reimbursement for costs incurred.” This was the same amount paid in 2010.

Expenditure on property, plant and equipment was $76 million and the overall decrease in cash was a substantial $240 million with the result that liquid balances declined from $304 million to $60 million. Faced with this situation the directors of the company are not recommending a dividend for the year 2011.
Minority shareholders in neither of these companies will be particularly happy.

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On the Line – Demerara Distillers Limited Annual Report 2011

Introduction
Demerara Distillers Limited, a conglomerate group comprising several local and overseas companies with manufacturing, trading, banking and trust relationships in Guyana, the region, North America and Europe as well as a joint venture in India and associated companies in Guyana and Jamaica, will be holding its annual general meeting this coming Friday, April 27. When the shareholders meet at the company’s Diamond Complex on the East Bank of Demerara, they will consider, among other routine items, an impressive if not entirely informative annual report containing the financial statements of the parent as well as its subsidiaries.

Measured by growth in turnover, it was not such a good year either for the parent (2.2% compared with 11.3% in 2010), or for the group as a whole (a more respectable 6.7% but less than 10.6% in 2010). Sales to subsidiaries represented 75% of total turnover of the company compared to 77% in the prior year.

In terms of after-tax profits, on the face of it the company and the group have done very well; the profits of the company increased by 68.7% while those of the group increased by a still substantial but smaller 35.7%.

Performance over the past nine years is illustrated by the following graph:

Source: Annual reports

No doubt encouraged by these results, the directors of the company are recommending an increase in the dividend per share from $0.45 to $0.48 – it would be good if the company could appreciate, like everyone else, that “cents” are no longer part of the currency of this country –which will cost the company some $23 million more than the $346 million paid out in 2010. Yet, for all of these, the Chairman in his report was less optimistic than usual, for reasons that only became apparent as the reader perused the financial statements and in particular their accompanying notes. Let us turn to some of those numbers.

According to the Chairman, there was an unspecified shortfall in bulk sales which carry a significantly lesser margin for which the higher value, higher margin-branded products should have more than compensated. An outsider looking in would think the company should welcome any situation whereby the higher margin products grow at a faster rate than the lower margin products. The emphasis on the sale of bulk products over branded products evident in year 2010 during which bulk sales increased by 45% while total sales increased by 10% seems quite counter-intuitive, if not illogical.

Domestic operations
While two of the four domestic operations made losses, those that were profitable produced some good results on a considerably smaller asset base. The standout failure is TOPCO, the juice company in which, despite the injection of hundreds of millions of dollars in capital expenditure, has managed to make losses in more years than it has operated profitably. One cannot help but notice too for TOPCO the almost identical language in 2010 being repeated in 2011, suggesting an inadequate level of attention in a competitive business environment. On the other hand, Distribution Services Limited, with a much smaller asset base, is reported to have enjoyed a10% growth in income and a 43% growth in after-tax profits.

Revenue from Guyana customers represents 65.4% of total group turnover compared to 62.5%, possibly reflecting the pressures faced in the international markets.

International operations
Not unlike the domestic operations, the inconsistently presented information for the overseas operations indicates that the international members of the group also had mixed fortunes. Total overseas sales fell by 1.6% despite growth in branded products of 10% reported by the Chairman.

In problem plagued Europe, turnover was down 6% and after-tax profits by 32%. In that region, a single customer generated 44.6% of total turnover from Europe compared to 50.0% in the prior year.

In DDL USA, no sales information is offered but after tax profit is reported to have grown from G$21 million in 2010 to $31.5 million in 2011. The shareholders of the parent company will recall that Demerara Rum Company of Canada was bought two years ago for $76.9 million. The company’s shareholders would certainly have liked to have had some particulars of that transaction as well as the parties behind the acquired company which handled bulk sales in Canada and must have had the confidence of the directors back home.

Interestingly enough, while the Canadian company was able to record an after-tax profit of $23.4 million in ten months, in 2010 it made only $8.9 million in 2011. It would certainly be interesting to learn how this was possible in the home of the company’s VP for International marketing, Mr Komal Samaroo. The company’s joint venture in Jamaica saw profits halved in 2011, but it was the Indian joint venture which ought to have caused the most concern among the company’s directors.

It seems certain that the existing joint venture in Demerara Distillers (Hyderabad) is heading the way of a number of other subsidiaries which the parent acquired and subsequently found unprofitable. Anyone following this column in the early nineties would remember the adventures of the first Indian operation which suddenly and without any explanation or information disappeared in 1993. Well, the directors having promised shareholders in the 2010 annual report that management would “make appropriate decisions to ensure an adequate return on [India] investments in 2011” now say, after another year of losses, that a “decision will be made in 2012 on the way forward.”

BEV Processors Inc
What does all of this mean? Except for an interesting transaction in which the company divested its BEV Processors Inc, the results of the company and the group would have been unimpressive. The profits reported include a non-recurring $288 million in dividends received prior to the sale of the investment, a reminder of a missed and costly lesson for Guyana’s taxpayers on whose behalf privatisation czar Winston Brassington sold the government’s 20% holding in GT&T without getting any of the year’s dividends, let alone accumulated profits.

The BEV transaction was particularly interesting in that the sale took place in early March 2011, but the dividend was not recorded in DDL’s books until the second half of 2011. Moreover, the 2010 annual report referred to the BEV shares sale in March 2011 without any mention of the substantial dividends the company received.

The June 2011 half year report published under the Securities Industry Act was used to help explain the revenue flow over the year. Turnover in the second half of the year represented 53% of the turnover for the entire year but produced exactly 50% of the gross profit and 60% of the profit before tax as a result of other income earned, representing 79% of the year‘s total. For the second half of 2011, finance cost was 52% and profit before and after tax 63% and 66% respectively, of the full year amounts.

But the income statements are interesting for other reasons too. Note 26 Related Parties discloses several transactions with group companies, only some of which I have been able to follow in the financial statements. Here are the major ones:

One might expect these to show up somewhere in the Income Statement; it is unclear where some of these items have been accounted for. In the interest of transparency, the company and its auditors TSD Lal & Co should be asked by some shareholder to explain these substantial transactions, before the GRA does. They should also be asked to provide information on which of the subsidiaries are audited and by whom, and which are not. It does not help shareholders and market confidence to have such uncertainties flowing from the financial statements of a public company, particularly one that is totally controlled by executive management.

Balance Sheet
Ever since this column began reviewing the company’s annual reports about two decades ago, two areas have stood out: inventories and loans. Because of the stable of products offered by the company, it is expected that inventories in the maturing process will be fairly significant while bearing in mind that inventories for accounting purposes must always be valued at the lower cost and market value, regardless of the accretion of the market value. The company had sales of $9.5 billion in 2011, the cost of which was $5.9 billion. In other words, the company has some 327 days of finished inventory on hand compared with 234 days in 2007.

Included in inventories as well is an amount of $1.165 billion of “spares, containers, goods-in-transit and miscellaneous stocks,” a category that always seemed to have been overstocked and out of balance with the finished stocks. It is good to see that that category seems to be falling significantly, both in absolute and relative terms. In 2007 the value of the inventories in that category was $1.8B or approximately 30% of total inventories.

The debt/equity ratio is a healthy 0.87:1 but the share of income before interest and taxes which goes to interest is around 25% and lenders to the company consistently receive a bigger share of the company’s earnings than its shareholders. In 2011 interest paid was $618 million ($371 million after tax assuming the lender is subject to a 40% tax rate) compared with dividends paid of $346 million with lenders investing less than half of shareholders’ equity.

Human resources
DDL has always prided itself as a good corporate citizen and is a major donor to the community through sports and education. In fact, two years ago the company established the DDL Foundation to “make a difference in the lives of deserving young people.” Internally too, the company has supported its employees with training, including the degree programmes at the University of Guyana. As the Chairman said, however, employee retention is a problem, a fact borne out by the turnover at management level in the company.

Of the nine members of the management team identified in the 2006 annual report, only two are still with the company, one of whom has moved up to the main board. Indeed, even at the board level there have been changes – some unavoidable – with only four of the nine directors in 2006 still on the company’s board of directors. Of the eight current directors, four are accountants including three serving in a non-independent executive capacity. The remaining one is a recent addition to the Board and serves as the Chairman of the Audit Committee.

Conclusion
This column has for years commented on the quality of the information provided in the Annual Report including an indication of those subsidiaries which have been audited and by whom. It is also not in keeping with modern trends to have only a Chairman’s report and not a CEO’s report, or a Management Discussion and Analysis which does not depend on the existence of the CEO.

Despite the improved earnings and earnings per share, the company’s share price is trading lower now ($10.7) than it did at the end of the half year ($11.0).

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On the Line – The Banks Group

Comment
Co-incidences are rarely easy to explain. At the time of launching an award for the best Annual Report by any Guyanese company as one of the activities and initiatives for its 25th anniversary observed last year, this column carried a review of the financial statements of the two operating companies of the Banks DIH group: Banks DIH Limited (‘Banks’), the food and beverage giant, Citizens Bank Limited (‘Citizens’), a 51% owned retail bank and Caribanks Shipping Company Ltd, a dormant company.

This coming Tuesday – and regrettably belatedly – Ram & McRae will be announcing the winner of the award for the 2010 annual reports. That is as much as I am permitted to say at this time.

Introduction
Today’s Business Page looks at the financial statements of the two operating companies of the Banks DIH group. The group comprises Banks DIH Limited, the food and beverage giant, Citizens Bank Limited, a 51% owned retail bank, and Caribanks Shipping Company Ltd, a dormant company. Banks and Citizens are both public companies whose shares are traded on the Guyana Stock Exchange. The financial statements of the group also include as an associate company B&B Farms Inc, a Guyana private company, and BCL (Barbados) Limited in which Banks holds a 25% interest.

Both the public companies in the group have as their accounting year-ends September 30 and will be holding their annual general meetings later this week – Citizens on Tuesday 17 and Banks four days later.

The shareholdings in the two companies have changed little over the past year with Banks spreading just over 60% of its shareholdings among a vast network of private individuals while in the case of Citizens, four shareholders own 82% of the shares with the remainder spread among about seventy smaller shareholders. The Boards of Directors of both companies are chaired by Mr Clifford Reis, CCH, who is also the Managing Director of Banks.

In a Corporate Governance Code published last year, the Private Sector Commission boldly called for a clear division of responsibilities at the head of the company. The Code makes it mandatory that the positions of the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) be held by separate persons. It also requires that the division of responsibilities between the Chairman and CEO be clearly established, be set out in writing, and be agreed by the Board.

Some observations
Another contrast between the parent and the banking subsidiary is evident in their annual reports; Banks’ high-quality, glossy report is designed and produced by Ross Advertising and printed by Scrip-J of Trinidad and Tobago while Citizens’ is on flatter type paper and produced by KRITI whose address is not stated.

There has been no change in the gender composition of both boards, each remaining steadfastly all-male, despite the constant chorus from progressive women like Stella Ramsaroop and Andaiye for more recognition to be given to women in Guyana. What makes the situation even more remarkable is that both entities have a large number of women staff and in the case of Citizens, six of the seven principal officers are women!

In any case, there can be no doubt that at both entities women make valuable contributions to the “exemplary growth in revenue and profit over that of previous years” reported by Chairman Reis in his report on the group. He had every reason to exude satisfaction: group profits from operations increased by 32% on a turnover increase of 16%. On the other hand, benefiting from the five per cent reduction in tax rates announced in the 2011 Budget, taxation increased by 10%, mainly from the banking subsidiary.

Banks DIH Limited

Source: Annual Report 2011

The company’s turnover (sales) increased by 15% from $16.3 billion to $18.8 billion, and its profit from operations increased by 27% while taxation at $868 million was a mere $4 million increase over 2010. As a result, net profit after taxation increased by 42%. Profit from operations as a percentage of sales which was 13% has increased to 14.3% while taxation as a percentage of net profit before tax decreased from 38.8% in 2010 to 30.9% in 2011.

Chairman Reis attributed the improved results to revenue garnered from the increase in physical sales, efficiencies derived from plant and machinery upgrades and an improved presell and distribution system. The performance was also attributed to capital expenditure of $3,142 million on major plant and machinery for the beverage, alcohol and water plants. The modern soft drinks plant which is expected to be put into use early in 2012 is expected to continue the trend of increasing productivity and profitability.

Growth
To get a clearer picture of how the profitability has changed one only has to go back to 2007 and 2008 when the profit before operations was 9.7% and 9.9% respectively, while the net tax effective rates in 2007 and in 2008 were 38.9% and 40.1%. Most impressively, two years after the company passed the $1 billion profit-after-tax mark, it is aiming to double that figure. Without taking anything away from the Guyana directors, it is perhaps more than merely coincidental that the company’s growth trajectory has been accelerated following the accidental partnership with Banks Barbados, aimed to repel an attempted take-over by Ansa McAl of Trinidad.

What is also significant is that the entire increase in the revenues of the company came not from exports but from domestic sources. Note 20 to the financial statements which gives a broad geographical breakdown of revenue, shows sales of goods and other services increasing by $2,478 million or 15% while revenue from exports actually declined by 24% to $233 million, down from $305 million.

Whether the company is satisfied with its domestic sales is not clear, but with the reputation of Guyana rum internationally, the company may wish to expand its horizons, a feature of the group since its launch in 1957, and indeed the theme for the 2011 report – the next level.

Source: Annual Report 2011

The balance sheet for the company and the group shows net assets increasing by $1,438 million and $2,149 million respectively. Payables and accruals included under current liabilities in the table above have increased from $1,538 million in 2010 to $2,625 million at September 30 last year.

Citizens Bank Limited
After a poor year in 2009 when the Bank had to make an impairment provision of $170 million for investments in Stanford International Bank and Clico Trinidad Limited – the region’s two financial catastrophes for that year – the results for 2010 were encouraging, while for 2011 they are impressive.

Profit after taxation in 2011 increased by 50.5% from $534 million to $804 million. Net Income for the year ended September 30, 2011 was $1,949 million compared to $1,469 million, an increase of 26.7%, double the increase in 2010 over 2009. Profit before Taxation was $1,279 million compared with $887 million in 2010, an increase of 44%.

Interest income increased by 32% and other income by 7.8% while operating expenses increased by 8.8%. Net Customers’ deposits had a significant 30.3% increase while interest expense increased by a more modest 8.5%.

Conclusion
The Banks Chairman was careful not to encourage too high expectations about the future. He avoided any comments about the future in the Banks DIH report while all the CEO of Citizens Bank was prepared to say – unhelpfully – was that 2012 “[would] bring both challenges and opportunities.”

It is my strong view, and indeed that of the Private Sector Commission, that companies need to enhance their communication with their members and the public. I noted a few weeks ago that Demerara Bank Limited had refused to release its 2011 annual report “until after their AGM.” I was met with a similar response when I sought a copy of the Citizens’ Bank Annual report. That is not a practice that should be encouraged by any institution, and certainly not one that has its sights firmly fixed on the next level.

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Another corporate governance code for Guyana

Introduction
The Council of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) of Guyana on April 7, 2011 accepted a Code on Corporate Governance which could have some transformational effect on the way Guyana companies are managed. The code has its origins in the National Competitiveness Council and was identified among eight priority matters at a meeting in 2007. The indications are that organisations representing attorneys-at-law, bankers, accountants, internal auditors, the Deeds Registry and the Guyana Securities Council participated in the preparation of the draft led by an “expert on Corporate Governance.” There is no indication whether the public companies were consulted by way of a draft for discussion or participation in any forum.

There is no effective date for the code suggesting that its principals assume that it is to take immediate effect. Perhaps its authors are unaware that compliance will require some companies to amend their existing by-laws. The sixteen page document contains three sections and an introductory part referred to as the ‘Basis for the Code.’ Not quite correctly, the code describes itself as the “first version” of a Corporate Governance Code for Guyana.

Securities Council
In fact, many years ago, the Securities Council published in 2004 Recommendations for a Code of Corporate Governance in Securities Markets. Unfortunately, those recommendations were ignored by many public companies and the Securities Council was never able to translate the recommendations into a binding code. But not only were the recommendations ignored by many but they were actually challenged by a senior executive of Demerara Tobacco Company Limited, Mr Chandradat Chintamani, now a director of Demerara Distillers Limited, one of Guyana’s premier public companies. Mr Chintamani, echoing the public sentiments of his then boss Mr Michael Harris, wrote in 2004 that he was “unaware of the requirement for a public company to provide a statement on Corporate Governance.”

Bank of Guyana
More recently, the Bank of Guyana, acting under the authority of the Financial Institutions Act of 1995 (FIA) and the Bank of Guyana Act issued Supervision Guideline 8 – Corporate Governance. That guideline which came into effect on January 14, 2008 covers a variety of governance related issues.

I do not recall any occasion on which the Bank of Guyana has expressed concerns about non-compliance with the guideline, no doubt because both bank and non-bank financial institutions require a licence from the Bank of Guyana in order to operate. This is a very useful if coercive tool that almost certainly guarantees full compliance.

Banks, DEMTOCO and DDL
The Chairman of the PSC is Mr Ramesh Dookhoo, who is also an executive of Banks DIH while Mr Chintamani is, (or was up to recently), a member of the executive of the PSC. Would Mr Dookhoo and Mr Chintamani ensure that the companies with which they are associated comply with the code they now recommend? This question is relevant because the PSC’s code does not constitute mandatory or enforceable principles. As the code itself says, it provides a list of the main principles of what is commonly agreed to be good corporate governance practice. Ironically, the PSC code has no more authority than the Securities Council’s recommendations, and it would be interesting to see whether the PSC’s leading members, acting in their company capacity, will take their new code seriously.

The code encourages companies to report on how they apply relevant corporate governance principles in practice, and also to be responsible enough to give an explanation to the shareholders of the reason(s) if they deviate from the code. This is sometimes referred to as ‘comply or explain.’ The code also calls on companies to provide information on their corporate governance policies and principles at the request of shareholders for further evaluation, the very things DEMTOCO said they would only provide if the law so required it.

The PSC code
Let us now look at some of the code’s main provisions that appear to warrant attention.

Section I: The Board of Directors
This section contains eight principles and runs to eight pages.

Principle 1 paraphrases the provisions of the Companies Act 1991 with respect to the powers, functions and duties of the directors. One new and interesting feature is the requirement that the annual report “set out the number of meetings of the board and those committees and individual attendance by directors.”

Principle 2 boldly calls for a clear division of responsibilities at the head of the company and makes it mandatory that the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) be separate persons. It also requires that the division of responsibilities between the Chairman and CEO be clearly established, be set out in writing, and be agreed by the Board.

This separation of the CEO and the Chairperson has been widely discussed in these columns before. The ‘big man’ culture in Guyana is for a unification of these functions into one holder. Guyana has larger-than-life incumbents in these positions at Banks DIH and DDL, but with the lead persons in the PSC directly associated with those two companies it seems reasonable to assume that those companies are in agreement with the rule.

Interesting too is Principle 3 ‘Board Balance and Independence’ which distinguishes between executive, non-executive and independent directors. In fact the code suggests that there is a rebuttable presumption of non-independence in several circumstances including if the director has been an employee of the company or group within the last five years; participates in the company’s share option or a performance-related pay scheme, or is a member of the company’s pension scheme; has close family ties with any of the company’s advisers, directors or senior employees; holds cross-directorships or has significant links with other directors through involvement in other companies or bodies; represents a significant shareholder; or has served on the board for more than nine years from the date of their first election.

Reinforcing these stringent conditions, the code requires that at least half the board, excluding the chairman, shall comprise non-executive directors determined by the board to be independent, applying the tests and conditions set out. If applied strictly, this is revolutionary.

Appointments to the Board must be done by way of an Appointments Committee which itself must make available its terms of reference, explaining its role and the authority delegated to it by the board. The terms and conditions of appointment of non-executive directors shall be made available for inspection. The letter of appointment shall set out the expected time commitment.

Principle 5: ‘Information and professional development’ requires among other things that the Board ensure that directors, especially non-executive directors, have access to independent professional advice at the company’s expense where they judge it necessary to discharge their responsibilities as directors.

Principle 6: ‘Performance Evaluation’ is no less important. This principle requires the board to undertake a formal and rigorous annual evaluation of its own performance and that of its committees and individual directors. At least every three years, this evaluation should be externally facilitated.

Principle 8: ‘The Level and Make-up of Remuneration’ requires that a significant proportion of executive directors’ remuneration shall be structured so as to link rewards to corporate and individual performance. Of course the risk here is the manipulation of results to earn higher levels of remuneration.

Interestingly, the code does not address the issue of disclosure so that shareholders will have to assume that everything is alright.

Section II: Disclosure and Accountability
Just when the code was heading in the direction of becoming truly progressive, it begins a dramatic downward slide. Much of what is stated under this section – except for a mandatory Audit Committee – is required by the Companies Act. The section is a misnomer since none of the three principles under the section addresses disclosure. In fact, they address financial reporting, internal control, and audit committees and auditors (barely).

Section III: The Relationship with Shareholders
This section contains three principles: communications with shareholders, constructive use of the AGM and shareholder voting. The code superfluously requires non-executive directors to attend all shareholders’ meetings, a requirement of the Companies Act.

Conclusion
It is a pity that the bankers did not draw the code’s architects’ attention to Supervision Guideline 8. While there are some progressive principles in the PSC’s code, it is not mandatory and there are a number of major omissions from what would be considered a modern Corporate Governance Code.

In these days when everything is about the environment, it would have been encouraging to have seen some nodding acknowledgment to sustainable use of resources and respect for the environment. Risk management, compliance with the law and disclosure are areas which are under-addressed.

The PSC has not indicated whether it will monitor companies for compliance. It should.

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Annual General Meetings generate interest

Introduction
As the season for general meetings moves into high gear, members, or as some companies call them shareholders, have been showing some interest in these meetings, although not always for what might be considered the right reasons. One complainant in a letter appearing in the press this week went so far as to make the charge of meanness against the directors and management of one of those companies. For good measure the writer reported that there was a “deep groundswell of resentment against the directors and management.” One individual who takes a healthy interest in such meetings and is one of the younger breed of investors wrote me on a number of issues all of which he suggested indicate that the directors and management are generally insensitive to the convenience of their members, including the calling of meetings when most persons would be at work, the meetings of more than one company being held on the same day, and no facilities for the aged and infirm. The shareholder was so incensed that he suggested that despite the expense of putting out glossy annual reports, company management really do not want shareholders to attend, speculating that there must be “something to hide”.

That speculation seems both harsh and unjustified. Experience suggests that our shareholding public is not sufficiently informed to detect any “hidden truths” and questions at an AGM almost without exception come from a handful of persons and are less than pointed. Some people it seems go to meetings as a social event, for many the only time they are invited to a hotel. Others go for that peculiarly Guyanese phenomenon at which gifts are distributed to those in attendance. While the motive for this may be good, this is an unfortunate practice to which members have become so accustomed that I do not think any company would wish to discontinue.

Serious business
A shareholders’ meeting is a serious event at which searching questions should be asked of the directors particularly given the weakness of our financial press and the fact that none of the companies meets the press and gives them the opportunity to ask questions. Such meetings are not really the forum for long-service awards but for directors to allow questions about their stewardship.

The practice of gifts apparently developed as a goodwill gesture and is now used to encourage attendance at meetings. It is important to note shareholders’ entitlement is to dividends – not gifts – and that all holders of the same class of shares are to be treated equally. In other words if one shareholder gets a gift or a dividend, then all shareholders of the same class are equally entitled. It would be interesting to see how any of the companies would respond to a challenge to a charge of discrimination against shareholders who do not attend and are therefore told that they are not entitled to a gift.

On this note it is useful to note that the Institute of Chartered Secretaries of India – a country that has lots of experience with improper influences – says categorically that “No gifts, gift coupons, or cash in lieu of gifts should be distributed to Members at or in connection with the Meeting”.

Clash of meetings
In terms of timing of meetings, part of the problem is that several of our public companies have a calendar year-end and have four months within which to hold their annual general meetings. But to do so they need to have the company’s financial statements finalised and audited for inclusion in their annual reports which must be circulated three weeks before the annual general meeting. It is hardly any surprise then that most meetings are held in the fourth month following the year end. While the Securities Council cannot dictate the date and time when companies which they regulate can hold their AGMs, it may wish to consider discussing with them a schedule so that there is no clash and persons who hold shares in more than one company are thereby free to attend each of these meetings.

This coming weekend there are three meetings of public entities – the Demerara Distillers Limited and Sterling Products Limited (April 29) and the New Building Society Limited (April 28). All the reports offer useful opportunities for serious questions on policies, performance, shareholder relations, etc. which could be raised by some shareholder group with collective knowledge and some institutional memory. Before making some specific points about the companies here are some general questions which shareholders can raise.

Board of Directors
With each of the three companies having only one woman director, the questions should be asked about the steps the company is taking to attract qualified women and minority shareholders for board membership. They may also wish to enquire about any mandatory retirement age for directors; whether there is an ethics committee; the perquisites paid to executives, the basis on which these are valued, whether executives reimburse the company for the fair value of personal benefits received and whether executive perquisites are checked by internal auditors and reported to the audit committee.

Audit and controls
The number of internal auditors the company has; whether they report to a sufficiently high level of management and have ready access to the audit committee; the regularity with which they visit each operating location, including foreign operations; the standards and performance of the internal audit department and whether these have been evaluated by an external review; whether internal auditors have full, unrestricted access to all company functions, records, property and personnel; and the actions taken on any material weakness in internal control reported by the independent accountants.

In the case of a company with several subsidiaries, if the annual report does not provide the information, shareholders should enquire whether all of the subsidiary companies are independently audited and the names of the audit firms. Too many auditors are not necessarily a good sign, while no auditor for any of the subsidiaries casts doubts on the financial integrity of their financial statements.

Political and Economic Environment and Taxes
Shareholders should be asking whether the company has maintained its competitiveness in terms of sales and earnings in the markets in which it operates; the cost to the company of compliance with governmental directives and regulations and the risks of operating in some markets and industries; the conditions for investment and expansion; taxation and efforts to lobby government on various issues.

In an election year, shareholders may wish to enquire whether the company plans to make any contributions, loans or other support to any political candidate or organisation including lobbies and if so to ask for details.

Financial and Liquidity and Capital resources
Against the background of their own personal liquidity and to formulate their savings and investments, shareholders would need to hear from their company of its plans to pay cash dividends and issue cash or bonus stock. With financial statements and annual reports growing in size and complexity, the shareholder should be enquiring why financial statements and footnotes in the annual reports are not more intelligibly written so that the average shareholder can understand them.

This list is by no means exhaustive and would have to be tailored to the specific circumstances of the particular company. Serious shareholders should keep a file containing past annual reports and the questions asked since even directors sometimes need to be reminded of earlier commitments.

Let us now turn to some specific issues which could be raised at this weekend’s AGMs.

DDL
This company operates in several countries, the economies of all of which did not perform as well as Guyana’s. Yet of the group companies, those in Guyana performed less well than those abroad. Indeed the parent company (DDL) reported a 12% decline in after tax profit, while the other local subsidiaries including its trading company Distribution Services Limited, TOPCO, Demerara Shipping and Demerara Contractors all came in with disappointing results. The company’s financing strategy has been questioned in these columns before and one wonders at the logic of financing costs over the past five years nearly double the returns to shareholders. If it has not already done so the company needs to consider why with all the investment TOPCO is still making losses. The company’s investment in India continues to cost the company significant sums while St. Kitts and North America remain marginal after several years of efforts and expenditure. On the other hand the investment in National Rums of Jamaica Limited is producing good returns.

Overall the return on assets and shareholders’ funds, has dipped slightly.

Sterling Products Limited
While turnover has increased, profit after tax has declined and therefore so have measures such as return on assets and return on shareholders’ funds. Chairman Dr Leslie Chin attributed this to higher deferred tax which was not completely compensated for by a decline in the corporation tax charge. In order to maintain the same level of dividends paid in 2009 the company will be paying out 53% of its after-tax profits.

New Building Society
The notice convening the meeting excludes from the right to attend the meeting, mortgage account holders, who under rule 21 of the Society’s Rules are described as advance members. While a similar exclusionary note was included in the 2009 annual report, such persons have always been allowed into the meetings and the basis of the decision to exclude them is questionable.

The other three major issues of note are: 1. the Society has been finally brought under the Financial Institutions Act although it has a four-year transitional window; 2. it is still in breach of section 7 of the Act, an issue I have pointed out before; and 3. the Society actually lent one billion dollars less in 2010 than in 2009.

Indeed, despite the housing programme in which it should be playing a major role, the number of loans at the end of 2010 was a mere seventeen more than in 2009, a clear indication that the Society lost significant market share during the year.

While the report acknowledges the mutual nature of the Society’s ownership it not only repeats the word “profit” ad nauseam but the directors appear not to understand the meaning of the concept. No wonder then that they have ignored rule 23 relating to rebates, an issue which the directors agreed at the last meeting to review following a question from the floor.

For those attending the meetings, enjoy your gifts.