The Tribune

"Sophisticated" Bahamian investors will have an extra three days to buy into the £2m mutual fund created to allow them to participate in local oil exploration activities.

The offering period for the Bahamas Petroleum Company (BPC) sponsored fund will now close this Wednesday, rather than the initially scheduled deadline of last Friday, to give its corporate advisers more time to process investor applications.

Leno Corporate Services said in a statement that it launched BPC Investment Fund, a Bahamian-incorporated investment fund for professional investors, to enable Bahamian investor participation "in the outcome of the project to explore for hydrocarbons in The Bahamas".

It added: "The initial offering period for the fund, which was scheduled to close at 5pm on February 7, 2020, now has been extended until 5pm on February 12, 2020. Leno has applied this three-day extension to accommodate the administrative processing of applications during the initial subscription period."

No mention was made of whether there has been any progress in opening BPC Investment Fund to smaller Bahamian retail investors. Leno announced in late January that a formal request seeking regulatory approval for this had been made to the Securities Commission, but nothing further has been mentioned.

The application seeks permission to convert the BPC Investment Fund from a professional fund into a lower subscription standard fund, which would allow individual and retail investors to purchase shares in it.

The present "professional fund" status means it can only seek investments from so-called "sophisticated" investors, such as institutions and high net worth individuals, willing to commit a minimum $10,000 while excluding smaller Bahamian retail investors from any involvement.

However, should the Securities Commission approve the BPC Investment Fund being reclassified as a "standard fund", it would be open to anyone interested in investing a minimum $1,000. The fund's only purpose is to acquire and hold a minority 4.47 percent equity stake in BPC.

Many Bahamian retail investors are likely to be unhappy at the BPC Investment Fund only being opened to investments made by large institutions, with the perception being that the "small man" is once again being denied the opportunity to make a wealth-creating investment that could drastically improve their economic well-being.

However, others will argue that the fund's status as a "professional" fund is entirely appropriate as the investment opportunity is only suitable for sophisticated investors able to both understand its high reward/high risk potential and absorb any subsequent losses.

For BPC is effectively a start-up, yet to drill its first well and with a history of financial losses. And, for all its research to "de-risk" the project, there is no 100 percent certainty that commercial quantities of recoverable oil lie below The Bahamas' sea bed.

As a result, many capital markets observers will likely view the BPC Investment Fund offering as more a venture capital/private equity investment play rather than an opportunity for small retail investors who can ill-afford any major loss.