Bank of Bermuda will not be taking its shares on a roadshow in the United States until the markets improve, said chief executive officer Henry Smith.

He said that there was no point of the bank going on a roadshow without an offering - and they would not do an offering until the stock markets had turned around.

When asked about the move, Mr. Smith said: "It is a little tricky, but what we have done is we have started making contacts, visiting selectively with buyers and analysts in the States. But we have been reluctant to do a full roadshow because while we did the listing, we actually never did an offering with it."

Since the Bank of Bermuda launched on the Nasdaq in 2002, the bank has been talking about a roadshow to promote its shares with a view to improving the price of its stock.

Last October, the bank's executive said in a conference call following an earnings release that despite not putting forward an offering, the bank would be going on a roadshow.

But Mr. Smith said last week that they had changed their minds and said now the time is not right to do this.

Companies normally go on roadshows to explain their company to analysts who write about companies and then advise their clients to buy stock. Favourable reviews can put little-known stocks, such as Bank of Bermuda, on the radar screens of the world's investors, but Mr. Smith said that without a stock offering there would not be enough stock out there to buy and sell.

"We had hoped to do an offering but the market has been very very bad and that is very difficult for an offering," he told The Royal Gazette. "So rather than talk about ourselves to potential new investors, in the absence of any offering - anything to sell, it really didn't make a lot of sense.

"So the people who are invested in us already and the analysts that are following us we are trying to go and see them personally, but a roadshow is a thing that will have to wait until we are doing some kind of offering," he added.

When asked when a roadshow might happen, Mr. Smith said that would depend on how the markets did and if they improved enough to warrant an offering.

"It would be driven by the fact that the markets improve, which would be the most likely, or if for some reason we just had to raise money, we would do it," he said. "But it is very unlikely. We are pretty well capitalised at this point. I don't expect anything in the near future because markets don't look like they are going to improve that much. But you never know. The best way to have the markets go up is to say that it won't."

Last October when asked by a caller, Dan Peduano, if they had planned a roadshow, chief financial officer Ed Gomez said: "We have been considering exactly that. We have not established a timetable, but it is something we need to do."

Mr. Smith agreed and said: "We are looking forward to doing just that. We really do feel that we are a bit of a strange animal in the marketplace. It would be great if we could hold an offering of some sort, but it would be great to get to know you (the analysts) all a bit more."