after shareholders voted to do so at the annual general meeting on Friday.

According to shareholders attending the meeting at Fort Hill, Devonshire, a motion to consider delisting the company, which owns television and radio stations ZFB and ZBM, was approved on Friday at the AGM.

The Bermuda Stock Exchange confirmed yesterday that shareholders had voted to de-list the company. The BSX said it was suspending trading of the company's shares yesterday pending a formal announcement on the details of the deal from Bermuda Broadcasting.

At the meeting it was agreed that each shareholder would be given a share of Devonshire Properties Ltd. on a one-for-one basis.

But the details of this agreement and details of whether Devonshire Properties will be listed or not have not been officially released.

Normally stock of a company intending to de-list will trade for 90 days to allow shareholders the option of trading out (or not), but until details are released, trading will remain suspended.

It is believed that a formal announcement will be made today declaring officially the company is delisting.

The BBC has had a bad year financially, closing the year 2000 with a net loss of $384,548 -- making a loss per share of 60 cents.

This is five times the net loss registered in 1999, when the loss stood at $71,806 and loss per share equaled 11 cents.

One of the main reasons for the poor performance of the company was an out-of-court legal settlement for a libel suit.

In the suit the company paid out an undisclosed sum to hospital engineer Neil Crane after ZBM reported he had been fired for misconduct. The television station later gave a lengthy apology.

On November 5, 2000 ZBM news director Darline Ming went on air and said there were no grounds for the report.

But the annual report for BBC does not detail what the payment was. The largest increase in not accounted for expenses was in "administrative costs'' which rose $291,680 -- from $433,805 in 1999 to $725,485 in 2000.

Mr. Crane was paid $75,000 by the Bermuda Hospitals Board for wrongful dismissal in June last year.

In the 2000 annual report, president Fernace Perry and chief executive officer Ulric Richardson blamed part of the poor performance on "the significant outlay for legal costs''.

They said: "The year was beset by legal wrangles and our company incurred substantial losses due to legal fees and a widely publicised legal settlement.

Essentially, the company elected not to contest a libel suit, primarily because the central figure in the case was no longer employed by the Bermuda Broadcasting Company. It was extremely difficult to piece together the background to the case without the full cooperation of the individual in question.'' The company also revealed it had "considerable investment in research and development for the production of an International Business Report but added: "This project did not materialise.'' The cost of this research is also not detailed.

The report added: "It must also be noted that the costs associated with the television operation were greater as we conducted studies to develop new and improved methods of operating the very labour intensive television channels.'' The cost is not detailed.

But overall there was a marginal increase in revenue, which rose from $3.5 million to $3.7 million.

The report said: "However the significant outlay for legal costs, the impact of the costs associated with research and development and the need once again to provide for an accumulation of bad debt, contributed to a net loss of $384,548.'' In the 2000 annual report, the president and CEO described 2000 as "a daunting year for the broadcasting industry in general, with television once again the laggard.'' But it added that the costs incurred during the year were one-off and the outlook was better for the year ahead.