Introduction
We have not heard much from or about it recently. Passing its offices at High and Robb Streets it is hard to believe that this is the institution that was set up with much hype, expectations and hope that it will make access to capital easier and cheaper, widen shareholder ownership and raise the bar of corporate governance. The Guyana Stock Exchange, or to use its more formal name the Guyana Association of Securities Companies and Intermediaries Inc, was incorporated on June 4, 2001 after several studies with the principal aim of encouraging companies to “go public,” a term generally used to mean companies offering their shares to the public. To encourage such companies the government offered them favourable tax treatment including waiver of duties payable on the transfer of shares in quoted companies and exemption from Capital Gains Tax on gains made on the disposal of shares in public companies.
The Stock Exchange has had only limited success, being largely ignored by the government and failing to attract any attention from this Finance Minister. With a private sector body that seems to have
