The Bank of N.T. Butterfield and Son Ltd. is listing its shares on the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange.

The secondary listing will be made next week. The bank's primary listing is on the Bermuda Stock Exchange.

Bank president and chief executive officer Calum Johnston said the secondary listing was being made in recognition of the importance of the subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands. The Bank of Butterfield International (Cayman) Ltd.

contributed $15.5 million in income in the financial year to June 30.

The income made up 44 percent of the group's earnings from core business operations. The bank's Bermuda operations contributed 50 percent of the total income before write offs for discontinued operations.

The bank is also a founding member of the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange, which began operations two years ago. The bank has 179 staff in the Cayman Islands and provides essentially the same services there as in Bermuda. Customer deposits in the Cayman Islands grew 7.6 percent to $786.8 million in the last financial year. Total assets were $879 million. The bank also launched two investment funds in the Cayman Islands last year.

Bank of Butterfield chief financial officer Richard Ferrett said the secondary listing could also help make trading in the stock more liquid by providing more exposure to investors.

"We see this as an important step for the group and gives us the ability to widen the investor base in the bank and it may increase liquidity in the bank's stock which is good for us and our shareholders,'' he said.

He said all trading in the Cayman Islands will be monitored from Bermuda. The bank has the ability to limit trading in the stock if the percentage of foreign ownership comes close to 40 percent.

Currently Bermudians hold about 74 percent of the bank's stock. Bermuda's regulations limits foreign ownership in local companies to a maximum of 40 percent.

Last year the Bank of Bermuda failed to get exemption from the regulation, The Bank of Bermuda wanted to get the exemption before making a secondary listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange. That listing has now been put on hold while the bank considers other alternatives.