Top executives of the Jamaica Broilers Group (JBG) will meet today with the Financial Services Commission (FSC) to explain the selling off of company shares by top managers, days ahead of a profit-warning notice from the poultry producer that it was expecting a big financial hit in its ethanol business.

Last night, Broilers financial director, Ian Parsard, said that a similar meeting with the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE), yesterday was "very positive."

"What I am saying is that we have done nothing wrong," said Parsard. "We have not violated any insider-trading regulations."

JSE general manager Marlene Street-Forrest could not be reached for comment.

Parsard said it was Broilers which requested the meetings with the regulators.

But those offers to talk face to face came after the JSE had written to the company, stating its disquiet about the proximity of the trades to the profit-warning notice.

The stock exchange on Friday and Monday reported three transactions made just days before Jamaica Broilers' information notice to the stock exchange Friday, September 28, that rising ethanol prices would mean a US$3 million loss in its second quarter.

That notice was published Monday by the stock exchange, sending the JBG stock price lower by 59 cents to $4.51, after closing up nine cents at $5.10 on Friday.

VP sold shares

On that same day, the JSE also advised the market that David Mair, vice-president of marketing, protein products planning, had sold 475,145 of his JBG shares on September 27, and that Donald Patterson, vice-president of accounting and information systems, had sold 196,585 shares on September 25.

Mair had also sold 280,000 units last Friday.

The JSE had initially written to company secretary Peter Depass, requesting an explanation of the trades, citing both the JSE Model Code for Securities Trading as well as the Securities Act.

Parsard said that the FSC had not written to the company, but Broilers had still asked for a meeting to clear the air about the trades.

Insider trading is an offence under Section 51 of the Securities Act, which is enforceable by the FSC.

Contravention of the provisions is punishable by a fine or up to 10 years' imprisonment for an individual, or a fine, in the case of a company.

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