JSE halts top 100 shareholder list

Christopher Berry, executive chairman of investment bank Mayberry Group, wants the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) to restore public access to detailed shareholder data, arguing that recent restrictions undermine market transparency despite corporate disclosure laws.

“People like to know who the controlling parties are of a company they are investing in and whether those individuals are buying or selling out their stakes,” Berry told the Financial Gleaner on Friday. “There are many times when insiders have bought or sold large positions just before good or bad news is released.”

Instead of weekly updates, investors would now rely on quarterly updates that accompany financials. The Jamaican law, Berry said, requires that the beneficial interest in all companies be disclosed.

“So why are you hiding the information on the Top 100 owners of Jamaica’s listed companies?” Berry wrote on February 5 on the platform X.

Berry has waged a weeks-long campaign on social media and endorsed a petition after the JSE, in his words, “suspended” issuing the top 100 shareholder lists – a service that had been available to the public for years through formal requests.

The JSE historically updated the lists weekly and provided them to stakeholders though over the years, it began limiting access, with media requests getting ignored. The practice appears to have ended entirely in recent months, according to Berry. He added on X: “This was suspended because of ‘data protection’, but these companies are ‘public’ … I’m not understanding.”

The restrictions come as Jamaica implements data-protection legislation across government and private sectors. But Berry argues that the move contradicts the principle that publicly traded companies should operate with transparency about ownership.

Berry’s social media posts suggest that the restrictions have limited access to ownership data that firms previously used for market analysis and due diligence.

Public companies in Jamaica still publish top 10 shareholder lists alongside their financial results, but the more detailed top 100 data – which can reveal significant minority stakes and ownership patterns – is no longer readily available.

On Friday, Berry linked a petition at bringbackjse100.com calling on JSE Chairman Stephen Whittingham to “intervene and direct the management of the Jamaica Stock Exchange to make the top 100 shareholder lists for all public companies listed on the JSE available to all shareholders on a weekly basis”.

“This data is fundamental to the transparency and integrity of our capital market,” the petition states. By noon Friday, it had garnered 58 signatures. It was unclear who created the petition site.

Whittingham did not immediately respond to Financial Gleaner queries on the matter up to press time. The Financial Gleaner also called the JSE head office and was told by staff that it stopped issuing these lists “sometime last year” due to “concerns about privacy and data protection”.

Berry’s campaign began on February 3 when he wrote: “JSE should promote more transparency by releasing the top 100 for each customer as was customary before.”

The dispute highlights tensions between data privacy regulations and disclosure norms in small capital markets.

steven.jackson@gleanerjm.comneville.graham@gleanerjm.com