Long-suf­fer­ing share­hold­ers of pub­licly list­ed TTNGL were giv­en hope of a turn­around in their for­tunes yes­ter­day, when the com­pa­ny an­nounced a pro­pos­al to re­duce its stat­ed cap­i­tal ac­count by $2.2 bil­lion.

Share­hold­ers of TTNGL will be asked to ap­prove a spe­cial res­o­lu­tion at its Feb­ru­ary 5 an­nu­al meet­ing that would re­duce its to­tal share cap­i­tal from $2.772 bil­lion to $572.12 mil­lion.

In a let­ter to share­hold­ers, TTNGL said the com­pa­ny has been un­able to pay div­i­dends to its share­hold­ers over the last three years, due to its in­abil­i­ty to sat­is­fy the sol­ven­cy test pre­scribed in the Com­pa­nies Act.

“This po­si­tion was brought about by the im­pact of im­pair­ment charges record­ed in the com­pa­ny’s fi­nan­cial state­ments which have erod­ed/re­duced the re­tained earn­ings, re­sult­ing in an es­ti­mat­ed ac­cu­mu­lat­ed deficit of $1.8 bil­lion as at De­cem­ber 31, 2025,” ac­cord­ing to the let­ter to share­hold­ers.

“These im­pair­ments re­flect low­er cal­cu­lat­ed val­u­a­tions of TTNGL’s in­vest­ment in its un­der­ly­ing as­set, Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Ltd, that were dri­ven by ma­te­ri­al­ly low­er long-term cash flows at PPG­PL. The low­er val­u­a­tion was pri­mar­i­ly a re­sult of re­duced fore­cast gas sup­ply vol­umes to PPG­PL for pro­cess­ing, the in­clu­sion of a fi­nite use­ful life for Trinidad op­er­a­tions to 2042 (due to de­com­mis­sion­ing pro­vi­sions), and low­er fore­cast cash flows from PPG­PL’s op­er­a­tions in North Amer­i­ca,” the let­ter stat­ed.

In a news­pa­per ad­ver­tise­ment yes­ter­day, the TTNGL di­rec­tors said the re­duc­tion in the com­pa­ny’s share cap­i­tal is in ac­cor­dance with sec­tion 48(3) of the Com­pa­nies Act.

The di­rec­tors said they are sat­is­fied that, fol­low­ing the pro­posed re­duc­tion of the stat­ed cap­i­tal ac­count:

• ↓TTNGL would be able to pay its li­a­bil­i­ties as they be­come due; and

• ↓The re­al­is­able val­ue of the com­pa­ny’s as­sets would not, af­ter the cap­i­tal re­duc­tion, be less than the ag­gre­gate of its li­a­bil­i­ties.

The re­duc­tion of TTNGL stat­ed cap­i­tal was in­ter­pret­ed as the com­pa­ny’s prepa­ra­tion to re­sume the pay­ment of div­i­dends, as it would now be able to pass the sol­ven­cy test.

The last div­i­dend re­ceived by TTNGL share­hold­ers was on Sep­tem­ber 14, 2022 for $0.35. In 2022, the share­hold­ers of the com­pa­ny re­ceived a to­tal div­i­dend of $0.85. The share­hold­ers did not re­ceive div­i­dends in 2023, 2024 or 2025.

From the end of 2022 to yes­ter­day, the share price of TTNGL has tum­bled by 87.3 per cent, drop­ping from $20.90 to $2.65.

The spe­cial res­o­lu­tion to re­duce TTNGL’s stat­ed cap­i­tal re­quires the ap­proval of not less than 75 per cent of the votes cast by share­hold­ers ei­ther in per­son or by proxy. The an­nu­al meet­ing will be held at the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre.

TTNGL board com­pris­es chair­man Ger­ald Ramdeen and di­rec­tors Judy Kalloo, Ash­meer Mo­hamed and Dr Ram­per­sad Moti­lal.