The share­hold­ers of Bari­ta In­vest­ments Ltd, a pub­lic com­pa­ny list­ed on the Ja­maica Stock Ex­change (JSE), last week ap­proved the court-sanc­tioned scheme of arrange­ment for the Cor­ner­stone Group at an ex­tra­or­di­nary gen­er­al meet­ing in Kingston.

In a no­tice on the JSE web­site, Bari­ta said the fi­nal re­sults con­firmed by the com­pa­ny’s Reg­is­trar, the Ja­maica Cen­tral Se­cu­ri­ties De­pos­i­tor, in­di­cat­ed that 99.66 per cent of the Bari­ta’s share­hold­ers who were present or sent in their prox­ies vot­ed in the af­fir­ma­tive for the com­pos­ite scheme of arrange­ment.

That rep­re­sents 81.87 per cent in val­ue of the share­hold­ing in Bari­ta.

T&T’s ma­jor­i­ty state-owned bank, the First Cit­i­zens Group, is the sec­ond largest share­hold­er of Bari­ta In­vest­ments, with 7.41 per cent of the com­pa­ny.

The vote at the meet­ing paves the way for the Cor­ner­stone Trust & Mer­chant Bank, Bari­ta In­vest­ment and Bari­ta’s whol­ly-owned sub­sidiary, Bari­ta Unit Trusts Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny, to be­come sub­sidiaries of Bari­ta Fi­nan­cial Group, the pro­posed fi­nan­cial hold­ing com­pa­ny.

For the fi­nan­cial year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 3024, Bari­ta In­vest­ments de­clared af­ter-tax prof­it of J$3.81 bil­lion (US$24.26 mil­lion), which was an 11.7 per cent in­crease com­pared to the J$3.41 bil­lion the fi­nan­cial ser­vices com­pa­ny earned in its 2023 fi­nan­cial year.

Paul Simp­son is the founder, pres­i­dent and CEO of Cor­ner­stone Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Com­pa­ny.