Latest update November 29th, 2024 1:00 AM
NICIL is a destructive Stockfeeds shareholder- Badal
“It is time that Brassington be removed and a forensic audit carried out”
Robert Badal, the principal owner of Guyana Stockfeeds Inc. (GSI) has labeled the National Industrial and Commercial
Robert Badal
Investments Limited (NICIL) as a destructive shareholder, and says that Winston Brassington, who heads NICIL, again misled the public in his recent claims in the local media.
Badal yesterday responded that many of the claims made by Brassington or his representative, have been repeated on an annual basis over the past 10 years, shortly after every Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Company.
“The matters referred to were all disclosed, discussed, and approved by the Company’s Shareholders at their respective annual general meetings…All shareholders, except NICIL, understood and approved of those transactions.”
According to Badal, he has addressed the matters publicly in the past, and would therefore not respond to Brassington’s incorrect statements and claims.
NICIL, the holder of the Government of Guyana’s seven per cent shareholdings in Guyana Stockfeeds Inc., has, since privatization in 1998, been a very destructive shareholder, according to Badal.
He stated that at every AGM, other shareholders would ask why the Government of Guyana allows Brassington and his deputy, Marcia Nadir-Sharma, to act in such destructive and anti-businesslike manner.
“From Litigation against a narrow strip of land on which the company occupied and built an access road to its Wharf (not owned by NICIL), to repeated injunctions against dividend payment, all of which have been discharged for misleading the court except the last one made by the Chief Justice in June 2013, to disruptive behaviour of its representative, Marcia Nadir, to influencing the Securities Council’s recent advisory on dividends, and politically inspired obstacles against the company.”
Badal questioned how Brassington could complain about not paying dividends when he instructed NICIL to secure an ex parte
Marcia Nadir-Sharma
injunction from the Chief Justice in June 2013 against such payments.
According to Badal, shareholders at the 2014 AGM expressed their anger and protest against such a decision of the Chief Justice and lamented that after close to one year their Company has not been given a hearing.
“As they protested the Security Council’s advisory on dividends they all adopted a statement demanding changes at the Council including the resignation of its CEO and Legal Officer…Only NICIL voted against…One wonders in whose interest is NICIL acting, as a shareholder in favour of GSI or other interests.”
According to Badal, if NICIL or its head is not happy with the company’s management, the prudent action to take is to sell its shares.
“It would be advised to do so in a similar way it sold its shares in GT&T from which it was getting more than half a billion in dividends annually,” according to Badal.
He suggested too that “NICIL may choose to sell its shares in the manner it did with its further 30 per cent shareholding in Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation at a lower price than the price it sold its 60 per cent to New GPC”.
“Its handling of its shareholding in GPC and other deals is so different to its destructive posture towards GSI.”
As regards NICIL’s representatives, Brassington and Marcia Nadir-Sharma, Nadal said.
Head of NICIL
Winston Brassington
“Neither has any shareholding personally, but use their position as proxy to carry out a destructive agenda, instead of acting
in the interest of the GSI, as have all other shareholders.
“The two operate in the same fashion they manage the affairs of NICIL, as if it’s their personal property, without any level of accountability and transparency.
“The results are everyday reports in the press of secret and questionable land and property deals …It is time that
Mr. Brassington be removed from NICIL and a forensic audit carried out.”
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