Butterfield Bank shareholders will today get the opportunity to voice their opinions directly to management in what is likely to be a stormy annual general meeting.

The meeting comes after a turbulent period for the bank, during which the bank's shares have lost more than 90 percent of their value in less than three years and Butterfield has stopped paying dividends until a return to "sustained profitability".

Chairman Robert Mulderig can expect to take some heat from shareholders, several of whom have expressed their dissatisfaction with the way the bank has been run via the letters page of this newspaper.

The bank has made losses related to hundreds of millions of dollars in write-downs related to its investments in US mortgage-backed securities. The value of those investments plummeted with the US property slump and the credit crisis.

Last June the bank raised $200 million through an issuance of Government-guaranteed preference shares. Last month, the bank announced another major injection of capital, when a group of mainly overseas investors pumped $550 million into the 152-year-old bank.

The new investors got newly issued stock for their money at $1.21 per share. The deal massively diluted the ownership stake of existing shareholders, who did not have a chance to vote on it before the deal was struck.

The Bermuda Stock Exchange gave Butterfield an exemption from the need to hold a vote, which left many shareholders feeling aggrieved.

There have been big changes in senior management since the last AGM, with both chief executive officer Alan Thompson and chief financial officer Richard Ferritt having departed. Bradford Kopp is the new CEO and Michael Collins has been recruited from HSBC Bermuda to head Butterfield's Bermuda banking operations.

Qualifying shareholders have the opportunity to participate in a $130 million rights offering at $1.21 per share.

An information session on the rights offering will be held in Harbourview Ballroom of the Fairmont Hamilton Princess immediately after the conclusion of the AGM, which starts at 2 p.m.