The Dutch Caribbean Securities Exchange (DCSX) in collaboration with Vertex Investments N.V. hosted the Investment Conference: Roadmap to Market Proficiency on Thursday, November 23, 2017, at Curaçao Maritime Museum. The event was a great success!

With an oversubscribed registration and overwhelming turnout, Rene Romer, Managing Director of the DCSX opened the conference at 4 pm. The audience was able to field questions to each speaker and get immediate feedback on varying topics and interests.

Marlene Street-Forrest, the CEO of the Jamaican Stock Exchange shared some valuable insights that Curaçao can implement for our Local Securities Exchange DCSX such as having Business Mentors for companies that are listed to help with proper Corporate Governance. Another important topic: she discussed the favorable tax concessions on profit tax for listed companies and how it assisted in attracting small companies to list. Marlene highlighted that they found that despite lower profit tax for listed companies, this eventually resulted in an overall increase in total tax revenue for the Government driven by growth in all other taxes because of the higher employment levels and growth in the economy.

Mr. John Mahfood, the CEO of Jamaica Teas – a small company that was listed on the Jamaican exchange, shared how his company grew from a small USD5 million company to a USD25million company in only 8 years by listing only a mere 20% of his company’s equity. More importantly, he advised how listing the company resulted in it operating more efficiently because of the checks and balances of the independent shareholders. He emphasized that the benefits of listing far outweighed any misconception that an owner will lose control of his family business or may have to give up business secrets.

The panel discussion engaged all the audience members who were eager to ask questions about the minimum requirements of listing as well as opportunities for listing of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoins, among a host of other things.

The Conference was a great networking opportunity for the investment community and the DCSX along with Vertex wish to thank all the sponsors, speakers, organizers and attendants who made the event a great success! We hope to see you again next year for an even more intriguing event!