The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

SUPER Value's president yesterday asserted that the 11-store supermarket chain was a public company, telling Tribune Business that the $4 per share dividend it paid to investors in 2011 massively exceeded the "cents per share" typically paid by most BISX-listed companies.

Rejecting comments by AML Foods chairman Dionisio D'Aguilar that Super Value was able to move "more quickly" on its bid to acquire City Markets because it was a public company with shareholder responsibilities, unlike the BISX-listed food group, Mr Roberts said Super Value had effectively been a 'public company' since the early 1990s.

"Super Value is a publicly-owned company like AML, and has been a publicly traded entity since the early 1990s," he told this newspaper. "There's hundreds of shareholders. They are the consuming public and, and at the time we offered shares to the employees, we offered them money interest free [to buy stock].

"That was in the early 1990s. The public did not appreciate owning stock then, and many employees sold them back to us. But we are a public company, despite what the public believes. In the 1990s, we went close to 1,000 shareholders before they started selling back."

Public companies do not necessarily have to be listed on BISX, the formal Bahamian stock market. By strict definition, a public company is one that has more than 50 shareholders - it does not have to be publicly listed on an exchange, where its shares are traded. One Bahamas-based company that is a public entity, despite not being listed (yet), is Bahamas First Holdings, the general insurance parent company.

In Thursday's Tribune Business, Mr D'Aguilar contrasted the approach AML Foods had to take towards City Markets with that of Super Value, implying that the BISX-listed food group had to move more slowly and deliberately due to the need to answer to its shareholders for any material decision.

"We're a publicly listed company and have shareholders, with an AGM upcoming," Mr D'Aguilar said.

"We have to make decisions in the best interests of our shareholders. We don't want to make decisions that do not stand the test of scrutiny. Mr Roberts doesn't have the 'shareholder issue'. He can therefore make decisions quicker. We have to be measured. There are 1,300 shareholders who are looking to you to preserve their interests and maximise returns. We have to be very careful and measured."

It is possible that Mr D'Aguilar may also have been referring to the extra compliance demands imposed on AML Foods, as a publicly listed entity, by BISX and the Securities Commission, although that is not totally clear.

Nevertheless, Mr Roberts yesterday contrasted the returns generated by SuperValue last year with those produced by most BISX-listed stocks.

"We went on the market in the 1990s for $4, and last year we paid a dividend of $4 per share," he told Tribune Business. "Most listed companies pay cents dividends.

"In spite of what they say, and the perception that it's totally family owned, the [Roberts] family owns a majority."