Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

The Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Plipde­co) ex­pects to pay a $37,000 fine to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion (TTSEC) for breach­ing sec­tion 64 of the Se­cu­ri­ties Act 2012, when it made changes to its ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment, but failed to no­ti­fy the se­cu­ri­ties reg­u­la­tor, or the pub­lic, in a time­ly man­ner.

The Plipde­co board, which is chaired by Daniel Dook­ie, placed its pres­i­dent Ash­ley Tay­lor on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave on Ju­ly 27 and ap­point­ed Av­erne Pan­tin, its vice pres­i­dent of tech­ni­cal ser­vices, as act­ing pres­i­dent.

Since then, an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion was launched in­to con­tracts ne­go­ti­at­ed dur­ing his 16-year tenure at Plipde­co.

In an ex­clu­sive re­port on Sep­tem­ber 1, the Sun­day Guardian not­ed that no no­tice of Tay­lor’s ad­min­is­tra­tive leave was filed with the TTSEC, as Plipde­co is re­quired to do in ac­cor­dance with the Se­cu­ri­ties Act.

The act re­quires re­port­ing is­suers to file no­tices of ma­te­r­i­al change with the TTSEC with­in three days of the oc­cur­rence and pub­lish ma­te­r­i­al change no­tices in two dai­ly news­pa­pers with­in sev­en days of the oc­cur­rence.

In a no­tice by the board to share­hold­ers, pub­lished in dai­ly news­pa­pers yes­ter­day, Plipde­co not­ed that pur­suant to Sec­tion 64 (1)(b) of the Act, it was ad­vis­ing that Tay­lor had been placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave.

Plipde­co an­nounced on Ju­ly 9 that its an­nu­al meet­ing sched­uled for Ju­ly 11, would be moved to a date in Sep­tem­ber. The new date has not yet been an­nounced.

On Sep­tem­ber 1, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that Tay­lor’s ad­min­is­tra­tive leave came three months be­fore he was due to re­tire and stemmed from the terms of a lease agree­ment with TT Iron Steel Com­pa­ny (TT Iron). TT Iron ac­quired the de­funct Arcelor Mit­tal steel plant (which was in liq­ui­da­tion since 2016) in Point Lisas in Ju­ly with Plipde­co as its land­lord.

Mit­tal had in­curred close to $44 mil­lion in rent out­stand­ing to Plipde­co at the time of its clo­sure, and by ac­quir­ing the plant, TT Iron would have in­her­it­ed the debt.

Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that Tay­lor ne­go­ti­at­ed the ini­tial terms of the lease, by which TT Iron would have op­er­at­ed for its first three years lease-free.

How­ev­er, when the board raised is­sues with those terms, it was rene­go­ti­at­ed to six months rent-free. As part of the ini­tial pay­ment from the liq­uida­tor to Plipde­co, the terms were that $22 mil­lion was paid up­front, with the re­main­der of $22 mil­lion to be paid in Jan­u­ary 2025.

Plipde­co is a pub­licly trad­ed en­ti­ty with the State, through Cor­po­ra­tion Sole, own­ing 51 per cent of the com­pa­ny.

Ac­cord­ing to its an­nu­al re­port, the oth­er nine share­hold­ers with the largest block of shares are Masa In­vest­ments Ltd (7.6 per cent), Chan Ram­lal (6.67 per cent), and Tatil Life As­sur­ance Ltd (2.84 per cent). Bourse Nom­i­nee Ac­count Co (2.53 per cent), At­lantic In­vest­ments Com­pa­ny (2.52 per cent), Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd (2.48 per cent), Riyad Khan (1.49 per cent), Olympic Man­u­fac­tur­ing (1.26 per cent), and George Aboud and Sons Ltd (1.22 per cent).

For the six months end­ed June 30, 2024, Plipde­co de­clared prof­it af­ter tax of $41.30 mil­lion, which was a 22 per cent im­prove­ment com­pared with the $33.83 mil­lion the com­pa­ny re­port­ed for the first six month of 2023. The com­pa­ny’s rev­enue for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1 to June 30, 2024 was $185.30 mil­lion, 6.2 per cent high­er than for the same pe­ri­od in 2023.

Get­ting it right:

On Thurs­day Sep­tem­ber 12, the Guardian pub­lished a sto­ry on page 15 head­lined 'TTSEC fines Plipde­co for breach of dis­clo­sure re­quire­ment,' in which the news­pa­per re­port­ed that Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Plipde­co) had paid a fine of $37,000 for con­tra­ven­ing sec­tion 64 of the Se­cu­ri­ties Act.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion (TTSEC) has clar­i­fied that no fine has been paid by the com­pa­ny to date.