By Hamza Hendawi
IT WAS surreal.
“Delicious Coca-Cola. Relieves fatigue. The most refreshing drink in the world,” read the ad, a reproduction on mirror of old Coca-Cola slogans, complete with depiction of a woman in a turn-of-century outfit and hat. It hung on a wall of peeling paint and spots of dirt.
The outdated catch phrases appeared to blend in nicely with the events yesterday afternoon in Nicosia’s faded Europa Hotel, venue of Hellenic Chemical Industries’ first Annual General Meeting in three years.
Below the ad, on a table facing the room, were eight men – directors, lawyers and auditors of the debt-ridden and insolvent company that has for most of its 22 years cheated death to continue playing the part of a black hole for taxpayers’ money.
Of the eight, two did not even bother to wear neckties, while others looked like they would rather be somewhere else. One, a lawyer, was so eager to leave, he was on his feet ready to go before the meeting was even finished. Earlier, he put his head under the table to speak on his cellular phone.
Hellenic’s unfortunate shareholders had their worries of years past compounded when they learned that the company was deeper in the red, by some £61 million.
For 90 minutes, the “investors”, mostly in their 60s and 70s, shared the room with a handful of journalists and a single news photographer.
One shareholder, in his 50s himself, explained: “This company went public in 1982. It has been 17 years and I would say that about a third of the shareholders have died since while the rest are getting on.”
“Fewer and fewer people are showing up for the AGMs,” he said.
To some, yesterday was a day that brought back memories they would rather forget. They once dreamt of profit, even wealth, trusting Hellenic Chemical Industries with their money, buying shares in a company that invited them to buy its stock with a 1982 prospectus that contained what was later found to be fraudulent information.
Yesterday, one shareholder spoke emotionally of the loss of his school days’ savings, another recounted the sad story of a widow who bought shares with the pension left behind by her deceased husband.
The government has a 27.5 per cent stake in Hellenic Industries, while the Hellenic Mining Corporation has 30 per cent and the Co-Operative Movement 22 per cent. Investors, mostly provident funds of public companies and semi- governmental organisations, have 13 per cent and the Archbishopric another seven per cent.
The company was set up in 1977 to meet local demand for fertilizers, but has produced them on-and-off for only about three years in the 1980s.
A damning report on Hellenic Industries issued in 1986 by a high-powered committee failed to stir the government into action, something that detractors link to the fact that some board members at the time were related to powerful political figures or were individuals still active in the public domain, occupying top jobs in the civil service.
Yesterday’s AGM gave no clue to the future of the company, whose liquidation was decided, but not acted upon, by the Cabinet in April last year.
The discussions covered a wide variety of topics, including the government’s failure to replace directors who quit, the ownership of the land on which Hellenic’s factories stand in the Vassiliko area near Limassol, and the reported interest by an unnamed foreign company in leasing the facility.
With some £61 million in debt and rising and its return to production a remote possibility, the discussions seemed pedantic and perhaps even pointless. There were no dividends, no bonus shares or a lucrative share split.
Only cheap canapés, sandwiches and orange juice to wash them down with awaited the shareholders: courtesy of Hellenic Chemical Industries.
