THE BOARD of Barbados' largest conglomerate will soon be sitting down to discuss the latest offer of acquisition made by Trinidadian company Neal & Massy.

This was revealed yesterday by BS&T chairman Sir Allan Fields.

"We will certainly respond to the new offer on the table," Fields said on the weekly call-in programme Sunday Brasstacks.

Sir Allan, however, was unable to give the true value of BS&T shares, when questioned by a number of callers.

"There are a host of different ways with which you can value a company, and I don't have that information right now," he said.

The chairman did say that the future of Barbados' largest conglomerate would again lie with its shareholders.

"The future is in the shareholders' hands. If they accept the Neal and Massy offer, they will get a significant amount for shares, and will become shareholders in Neal and Massy and will continue to reap benefits."

Sir Allan did take the opportunity to call for a conformity in the rules and regulations involving stock exchanges throughout the Eastern Caribbean. "It's extremely difficult to deal with it when you have a completely different set of rules in each country. There is too much disparity between the three exchanges.

"There should be some urgency to put in place rules and penalties which can be imposed if people do not conform."

Tony Johnson, an economist and former head of the Barbados Stock Exchange, agreed. "We have to move toward harmonisation. The chaos has come about because of ambiguance and duplication in the rules of the different stock exchanges." (BA)