GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Stock Ex­change (TTSE) has marked yet an­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial land­scape with the list­ing of the $400 mil­lion Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund (NIF) 2 bond.

The list­ing cer­e­mo­ny took place at the TTSE’s of­fice, Nicholas Tow­er, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

The NIF 2 bond was launched on Jan­u­ary 22 and it was over­sub­scribed by 267 per cent.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, 1,110 new ac­counts were opened by in­vestors to par­tic­i­pate in the NIF2 bond, with over 91 per cent of these ac­counts be­long­ing to re­tail in­vestors.

Eva Mitchell, CEO, T&T Stock Ex­change Ltd, who spoke at the cer­e­mo­ny, not­ed that the jour­ney of the Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund Hold­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd (NIF) and the TTSE has been one of col­lab­o­ra­tion, in­no­va­tion and shared suc­cess.

“To­geth­er, we have nav­i­gat­ed through chal­lenges, seized op­por­tu­ni­ties and worked tire­less­ly to ad­vance our lo­cal cap­i­tal mar­ket,” she said.

In 2018, NIF launched Se­ries A, B, and C bonds to­talling $4 bil­lion, with an over­sub­scrip­tion of 85 per cent, amount­ing to $3.4 bil­lion.

The NIF A, B, and C bonds were list­ed on the TTSE on Sep­tem­ber 4, 2018, re­sult­ing in ap­prox­i­mate­ly $328 mil­lion trad­ed to date.

Ac­cord­ing to Mitchell, the suc­cess­ful over­sub­scrip­tion of the NIF2 bond by 267 per cent high­lights the strong in­vestor con­fi­dence in the lo­cal mar­ket. More­over, she added that the sig­nif­i­cant par­tic­i­pa­tion of over 1,110 new ac­counts, with over 91 per cent be­long­ing to re­tail in­vestors, reaf­firms the pop­u­lar­i­ty and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty of the bond among in­di­vid­ual in­vestors.

“As we gath­er to mark the list­ing of the NIF2 bond, we not on­ly cel­e­brate its fi­nan­cial im­pli­ca­tions but al­so the spir­it of col­lab­o­ra­tion and re­silience that it rep­re­sents. This list­ing un­der­scores the strength and vi­bran­cy of our lo­cal cap­i­tal mar­ket and the con­fi­dence that in­vestors have in our econ­o­my.

“As we em­bark on this new chap­ter, let us re­flect on the achieve­ments of the past, cel­e­brate the present, and em­brace the op­por­tu­ni­ties that lie ahead,” Mitchell added.

The TTSE is the pri­ma­ry stock ex­change in T&T, fos­ter­ing cap­i­tal mar­ket de­vel­op­ment and pro­vid­ing a plat­form for busi­ness­es to raise funds through pub­lic list­ings.

Ac­cord­ing to its web­site, the Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund Hold­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd (NIF) is a com­pa­ny cre­at­ed by its sole share­hold­er, the Gov­ern­ment, to hold five as­sets.

These as­sets were re­ceived by the Gov­ern­ment as pro­ceeds from the share­hold­ing of cer­tain as­sets of Cli­co (un­der the su­per­vi­sion of Cen­tral Bank) and CIB, as well as an ap­pro­pri­ate share­hold­ing of TGU owned by the Gov­ern­ment.

Since 2009, the Gov­ern­ment has sought to re­cov­er funds owed to it aris­ing from the bailout of Cli­co and CIB, which re­sult­ed in both Cli­co and CIB trans­fer­ring cer­tain as­sets held by them to the Gov­ern­ment, some of which, in ad­di­tion to the share­hold­ing of TGU, were trans­ferred to NIF.