Bank of Bermuda shareholders approve sale to HSBC

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

HAMILTON, Bermuda: Bank of Bermuda shareholders voted overwhelmingly on Monday to sell the island's largest financial institution to HSBC Holdings Plc for $1.3 billion.

According to Reuters, the vote was 91 percent in favour to 9 percent against, a Bank of Bermuda spokeswoman confirmed after the special shareholders' meeting in the island's capital, Hamilton.

Shareholders will get $45 a share -- $40 from HSBC and $5 from Bank of Bermuda.

The sale of the bank -- one of three in the British colony and the island's largest employer with almost 3,000 staff -- was also approved on Monday by the independent regulator Bermuda Monetary Authority.

The Bank of Bermuda board recommended acceptance of the buy-out when it was announced last October, but there has been some opposition to the bank falling into foreign hands. Some opponents said they were worried about job losses which HSBC have said are inevitable and argued the $45 share price was too low.

Bank of Bermuda -- which has offices in Bermuda, London, Luxembourg, Guernsey, Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands, Isle of Man, Dublin, Jersey, new Zealand, Singapore and New York -- is listed primarily on the Bermuda Stock Exchange but also on the Nasdaq, and it has a market capitalisation of $1.3 billion.

Bermuda is home to home to some of the world's largest insurance and reinsurance companies, and more than 13,000 foreign companies have their nominal head offices in the low tax island.

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