Our business community needs a vibrant and expanding stock market to alleviate the constraints to capital formation, and spur economic growth by lowering both the cost and the risk of long term capital financing and business expansion. This has become increasingly more important as our best companies are on the verge of transforming themselves into Pan Caribbean entities. Individually however each member of this community remains extremely reluctant to list their companies, which is the first step towards building the kind of stock market that will ensure their continued success. The whole CL Financial debacle happened in part because during the process of transformation into a Pan Caribbean company. They were the first to do so; their cash flow simply could not keep pace with their rate of growth which was now dictated by global competition. Had they listed seven years ago they would have raised billions in new capital with which to finance the transformation. Royal Bank tested Pan Caribbean transformation and decided they could not go it alone and so retreated back into the arms of their previous owners.
What is becoming increasingly clear is we cannot allow these companies to fail by their inability to embrace the change that is at hand. We cannot become a developed country without this economic transformation therefore the government has a national obligation to create the economic environment, provide the incentive, regulations, and expertise to make the Pan Caribbean transformation of our local businesses not only possible but successful as well. So far however we have heard nothing but a deafening silence.
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