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Matthew Vella
Around 93 per cent of the shareholders of the former National Bank of Malta have refused a Lm7 million offer by government as a settlement for the shares they signed off forcefully back in 1973 under duress to Dom Mintoff’s Labour government.
Some 150 shareholders and heirs voted on Thursday evening at Palazzo Parisio in Naxxar, in which they directed their representatives and lawyers Max Ganado and Ian Refalo to push further for a higher settlement.
Shareholders are ready to push for a settlement as high as Lm18 million, although the compensatory sum falls short of the actual value of the bank and its assets when it was taken over back in December 1973.
Also present for the meeting was the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Louis Apap Bologna, a National Bank of Malta shareholder himself.
Pushing for a final privatisation sweep of Bank of Valletta, the nationalised offspring of the National Bank of Malta, Austin Gatt’s ministry is piloting the settlement after 31 years of court cases.
Today Bank of Valletta is worth in excess of Lm300 million.
It is as yet the most concrete act of recognition from the government that National Bank of Malta shareholders are entitled to compensation. But with a market value of Lm100 per share at the time of the 1974 take-over, government’s Lm7 million is a pittance to those claiming the shareholders are entitled to a heftier redress.
Shareholders Marcus Marshall and Jeremy Cassar Torregiani yesterday were amongst those who spoke during the two-hour meeting, in which a review of the work done by the shareholders’ representatives was presented.
Shareholders remarked how important the remarkable turnout had been, and that they were not ready to settle for government’s “arbitrary” settlement.
Shareholders expressed their appreciation that government was coming forward with a settlement but that the offer should be based on more objective criteria and reach a fairer settlement.
At the apex of its profitability in December 1973, millions were withdrawn from the National Bank in a run on its cash deposits. Within a week, Prime Minister Dom Mintoff demanded that shareholders sign off their shares to the government, refusing to allow the Central Bank to prop up the National Bank with bridging finance.
Shareholders have claimed in court that Mintoff wanted the share transfer to occur “naturally without compensation”, threatening to remove shareholders’ limited liability by extending it to their personal assets, and to withdraw Lm4 million in government deposits from the bank.
Fearing government would seize their personal possessions, some shareholders signed off their shares without as much of a whimper from the Nationalist opposition of the day.
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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