...Well if you do, the government has an offer but it's one you'll need to study closely. As promised, government is offering 5% of the shares in BTL for sale to the public starting at the middle of next month. All the details will be outlined in an offering memorandum which will be released on October 14th but basically the deal is that if you want to play, you'll need U.S. dollars, at least US$271. That's because the minimum number of shares prospective buyers can sign up for is 100 shares and payments must be made in U.S. dollars.
The share price is US$2.71 per, which means that government is selling it to Belizeans for US$9 cents more per share than it sold it to Michael Ashcroft who bought E-com's shares earlier this year at $2.62 cents. Of course, unless you're buying money illegally on the parallel market like BTL does, it's difficult to get U.S. dollars which tells us that most likely those unsubscribed shares will be scooped up by the Ashcroft group which is underwriting the entire sale.
It's a sale valued at US$4.9 million, hard currency that's not quite floating through the hands of would-be small shareholders. Of course, anyone buying into BTL might also want to know that now under the new government instituted articles, there's no assurance that the company will pay the large dividends it once did. That's because now under the new articles the holder of the majority of the B shares, which is a Michael Ashcroft company, determines the dividend in its sole discretion. Previously, 45% of the profits were deemed to be declared as dividends even when the board of directors did not approve.
