Managing Director of  The Gleaner Oliver Clarke said that the failure of  The Gleaner would have a significant impact on society. He said The Gleaner pages was a place of expression, and faciltated free speech for the citizens of Jamaica.

The Star

Gleaner seeks $4-million debenture loan

THE GLEANER COMPANY is going to the public next month with a $4-million first mortgage debenture loan to "keep the company in business".

Managing Director Oliver Clarke told the St Mary Chamber of Commerce last night that The Gleaner now owes $3 million, "all of which is repayable over a short space of time".

He said that slightly more than $1 million of these borrowings are in foreign currency, thus giving rise to massive losses on each devaluation. In 1977, he said the company's exchange losses on foreign loans exceeded $170,000, and "with future devaluations, both imminent and multiple, further losses loom large and near".

The loan, which will be called 'The Gleaner First Mortgage Convertible Debenture 1981/93' will bear interest at the rate of five per cent per annum, but the rate could be increased upwards to a maximum of 15 per cent per annum through the loan holder getting a share of any "profits" the company makes.

The increased interest payment above five per cent will only be payable out of profit.

The loan capital will be repaid in 12 equal payments, beginning in the third year, and on repayment of capital, lenders may elect to take shares at par in the company for 25 per cent of the capital then repaid.

Mr Clarke told the chamber he believed that "should The Gleaner Company fail, the repercussions of that failure could be far more horrendous to our society than many might expect". He said that the Gleaner was not only a barometer of the country's economic fortunes, but also a barometer of the "freedom of our people".

"On its pages," he said, "the aspirations, fears, anguish, conflicts and harmony of our society are mirrored.

"Thousands of Jamaicans have first expressed their right to free expression, to free speech, on those Gleaner pages. Remove those pages and, it seems to me,  a crucial organ in our country's body will have gone."

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