Sunday, June 22 2008

Trinidad and Tobago’s stock exchange, the largest in the Caribbean, is seeking to link up with bourses in the US and Canada to help attract investors and double the number of listings.

“The world over is consolidating,” Wain Iton, chief executive officer of the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange Ltd, said in an interview in New York. “We have to make a business decision.”

The Trinidad and Tobago stock exchange, with a market capitalisation of about $10.4 billion, is less than one percent the size of Brazil’s, the biggest stock market in Latin America. Iton plans to increase the number of listed companies to 65 from the current 33 companies, which include First Caribbean International Bank Ltd and retailer GraceKennedy Ltd.

Iton said he held talks this week with officials from the Toronto Stock Exchange and met with the Nasdaq OMX Group Inc and NYSE Euronext about possible strategic alliances.

Christiaan Brakman, a spokesman at NYSE Euronext, said the exchange is interested in sharing its technology with other bourses. Lawrence Leibowits, head of US execution and global technology, said as NYSE Euronext is “a regional stock exchange in Europe, who better to help than us”.

Steve Kee, a spokesman for the TSX Group, operator of the Toronto Stock Exchange, declined to comment on whether strategic alliances were discussed. “We have discussions with exchanges around the world on a number of issues,” Kee said. Bethany Sherman, a spokeswoman at New York-based Nasdaq, didn’t return a phone call seeking comment.

Exchanges globally have announced or completed deals valued at about $61.7 billion since the start of 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Over the past year, Nasdaq and the NYSE have signed cooperation agreements with markets in countries including South Korea, Israel, China and Japan.

“The proposition for a large exchange owning a piece of Trinidad and Tobago or Jamaica exchanges is not particularly tempting right now, as we don’t have too much to offer, being a small market and economies,” said Iton.

The Trinidad and Tobago stock exchange started trading five days a week from April 1 as part of an effort to boost liquidity. The exchange also plans to further integrate with the bourses of Jamaica and Barbados.

“It is our intention to have one single stock exchange in the Caricom,” said Karl Samuda, Jamaica minister of Industry and Commerce, referring to the 15-member Caribbean Community group.

None of the Caribbean stock markets is in the MSCI Emerging Markets or Frontier Markets indexes, contributing to the lack of foreign ownership of Caribbean stocks by global equity funds.