Harneys acts for the National Bank of the Virgin Islands in relation to a multi-million dollar share issuance

Harneys recently acted for the National Bank of the Virgin Islands in relation to a multi-million dollar share issuance. The Social Security Board of the British Virgin Islands became the bank’s second largest shareholder by way of private placement, investing in a combination of newly issued ordinary and preference shares.

“Any large private placement is always an interesting matter, but when you are dealing with the National Bank there are a number of significant additional complications,” Colin Riegels, lead partner on the transaction said. “Any significant change in either the equity structure or the shareholding of a bank requires a number of regulatory approvals, and we were trying to do both. There were a lot of details we had to wrestle with on the regulatory side. In addition, because the National Bank was originally formed as a public development bank, its ownership was constrained by statute, so we had to draft legislation to amend the principal statute to allow the deal to go through.”

Colin Riegels led the transaction, and other members of the team included partner Aki Corsoni-Husain, senior associateGeorge Weston, and associateMirza Manraj.