Minority shareholders’ rights advocate Peter Permell does not agree with the decision by Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL) directors to accept a price range for its shares. In fact he said a valuation of the shares needs to be disclosed to the public first.
Permell made the comment via a press release yesterday in response to the release of a directors’ circular on Friday, in which TCL stated that the Cemex offer of $4.50 per share should be rejected because it failed to reflect the full commercial value of TCL.
Permell, himself a TCL shareholder, said: “On the face of it, the director’s statement seems to suggest that the TCL board might be in possession of an official range of values for the company’s shares, which, by infrerence, could only come from some sort of formal valuation process undertaken on the company’s shares.”
Permell said: “I am advised that information regarding the valution of a company’s shares, particularly in the context of a takeover offer, quite easily qualifies as material non-public information. As a consequence, it therefore follows that timely if not immediate disclosure is required.”
He said disclosure is required because “the fundamental principle is that all persons investing in publicly listed securities should have equal access to information that may affect their investment decisions (that is whether or not to acept Cemex’s takeover offer). Thereby placing all participants in the stock market on an equal footing.”