The Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (GOSVG) has bought back 31 per cent of the shares in the Bank of St Vincent and the Grenadines (BOSVG) which it had sold to the Eastern Caribbean Financial Holdings Limited (ECFH).

According to a statement published by Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Dr Ralph Gonsalves, the Sale/Purchase Agreement to buy back this 31 percent shareholding was signed on June 30, 2017.

This purchase increases the Government’s total shareholding in the BOSVG from 12 per cent to 43 per cent and reduces the ECFH’s holding in the BOSVG from 51 per cent to 20 per cent.

“The agreed price for the buy-back is EC $32.3 million. Within the next few days the transaction is expected to be formally completed. Accordingly, the Board of Directors of the BOSVG would be reconstituted and refreshed. Business at BOSVG, of course, continues as normal. We expect that two senior executives of the BOSVG who had been seconded to BOSL will return to us in the not-too-distant future,” the statement by the Prime Minister said.

In November 2010, the GOSVG sold 51 percent of its shares in the wholly-owned State financial institution, then known as the National Commercial Bank (NCB), to the St. Lucia-based Financial Services Group, the Eastern Caribbean Financial Holdings Limited (ECFH) at a price of EC $42 million or $8.24 per share.

As at June 30, 2017, the shareholding in BOSVG was as follows: ECFH, 51 percent; NIS of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 20 percent; a number of private shareholders, 18 percent; and the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 12 percent.