Talk:Barbados Light and Power Company

message: -- Reference --
Power Shift - By S. C.
May 5, 2010
Barbadostoday.bb - Barbados Today Newspaper
Pg. 34 
- Company shedding TeleBarbados, getting out of telecoms business -
The parent company of Barbados' lone electricity provider is disconnecting its investment in TeleBarbados Inc. and the wider telecommunications sector on the heels of a $170 million ownership shift of its single largest shareholder.
Management of Light & Power Holding Limited (LPH), which owns Barbados Light & Power Company Limited (BL&P), and Canadian electric utility investor Emera Inc. announced today that the latter was purchasing the 38 per cent share of LPH long held by another foreign entity Leucadia National Corporation through its subsidiary Canadian International Power (CIP) Company Limiter.
Following the disclosure, officials here brushed off suggestions that Emera's interest in his organisation was the precursor to a takeover big by the Canadian company, which has been buying up share in a number of Caribbean electricity companies, including St. Lucia Electricity Services Limited (19 per cent) and Grand Bahama Power Company (25 per cent), in recent years.
But while not going into detail since the company's shareholders were to be fully informer first at their annual meeting in a couple weeks, BL&P managing director Peter Williams, who is also director of LPH, told Barbados Today that as a result of this investment switch his organisation's interest in the telecommunications sector would soon be no more.
That, he explained was because while Leucadia was an investment and trading company with interests in telecommunications, Emera was strictly a electric utility organisation with a different outlook.  It means LPH will be pulling the plug on its 25 per cent interest in TeleBarbados with CIP through Leucadia, which previously controlled 75 per center but will now own it outright.
The same will hold in relation to the under-sea fibre optic link between Barbados and several other Eastern Caribbean countries that was being undertaken by TeleBarbados through the subsidiary Antilles Crossing, in which LPH also had a stake.
"There was one issue that was related to our investment in telecoms.  Leucadia had taken the initiative and is the majority shareholder in the telecom venture, which is TeleBarbados and the undersea fibre cable, and Leucadia will continue to determine the direction whereas we will be focused now on the energy and electric utility business.  So effectively we will be not continuing our investment in telecoms," he said.
"Certainly our annual meeting of shareholders is scheduled for May 20 and at that point in time the directors will be able to expand further on how they see this partnership going.  Leucadia they are more an investments and trading company in terms of their business.  They are not in a utility operation so it is quite a different perspective now that I am sure Emera will bring being an electric utility investor.  As an electric utility investor they are very long-term in outlook so they are not in it for the short-term they view this as very much a long-term strategic investment."
Williams said LPH and by extension BL&P viewed the purchase as a positive move, saying there were signs of a take-over
"That is not the case. Certainly they (Emera) value the fact that we have local shareholder, local partnerships, and very much appreciate that having that involvement is really a positive.  Obviously people owning a stake in what is an essential service has a positive to that because people view the company as their own.  the investment by National Insurance Board they consider to be very positive and in fact that is one of the things that they see as a benefit to their participation," he said
"We view it as a very positive development where they will bring knowledge, expertise to the relationship that will be of benefit to our customer and our shareholders. So in that sense I think we have to obviously look now and see what we can learn from them, and learn from their experience, but I am sure that it will be very positive."
Emera president Chris Huskilson said the LPH share purchase was "an exciting step in our Caribbean growth strategy as we begin to build scale in the region". nothing that BL&P was "consistently ranked as one of the top-performing electric utilities in the Caribbean for efficiency, performance, and rate structure".
Despite the Canadian share purchase, LPH's majority 62 per cent will continue to be owned by 2,700 Barbadian shareholder, with the National Insurance Board holding 23 percent of this.
CaribDigita (talk) 02:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Emera stake reference 

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