Somers Ltd and Watlington Waterworks Ltd are the only domestic-board companies on the Bermuda Stock Exchange to have a higher stock price today than they did ten years ago.

The share price movements of listed local companies over the past decade mirror the ups and downs of the local economy, which has seen a boom and bust and a six-year recession during a period of upheaval.

Among the six largest domestic companies by market capitalisation, Butterfield Bank has seen the biggest decline — falling 87 per cent from the end of 2005 to the end of 2015. But long-term shareholders of utilities Ascendant Group (down 76.2 per cent) and KeyTech (down 76.9 per cent) suffered almost as much.

Watlington Waterworks was a star performer, its share price having gained 62 per cent from $12.50 to $20.25. In addition, the company paid out $4.59 in dividends over the decade that amount to an additional 36 per cent return. And shareholders who reinvested their dividends would have done even better.

The company, which has been around for more than 80 years, has invested heavily in its plant and on expanding its water supply network to the West End.

On December 31, 2005, the BSX’s domestic board looked very different from today. Several names are no longer listed, including Bermuda Bakery, Kentucky Fried Chicken Bermuda, Masters, SAL, MediaHouse and Solar Enterprises.

Others have changed their names. Belco Holdings became Ascendant Group, Bermuda Commercial Bank became Somers, and Stevedoring Services became Polaris Holding Co.

On the last day of 2005, The Royal Gazette/BSX Index closed at 3,884.08 points. Over the following decade it scaled a high of 5,382.06 points before plunging below 1,000 and then recovering some ground to close 2015 at 1,304.06.

Much of that upheaval was down to the travails of Butterfield, which was then and now by far the largest company on the domestic board and thus the biggest influence on the index.

The bank was the heavyweight local casualty of the subprime mortgage crisis that unfolded in the United States. The result of rampant loose lending and property speculation in the US, it culminated in a bursting housing bubble that had startling and far-reaching knock-on effects.

Butterfield, like many banks around the world, had invested heavily in US residential mortgage-backed securities, leaving itself horribly exposed to the meltdown. The bank posted hundreds of millions of dollars of losses in 2008 and 2009, as it was forced to write down these massive investments.

It survived with the help of sizeable recapitalisation, achieved through a $200 million government-guaranteed preference share issue and a more than $500 million cash injection from a group of institutional investors headed by the Carlyle Group and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

The restructuring meant a large issuance of new shares, which diluted the holdings of existing shareholders. At the end of 2005, there were about 80 million common shares outstanding on a split-adjusted basis. By the end of last year, there were nearly 477 million.

Butterfield shareholders were getting whopping 48-cent quarterly dividends back before a three-for-one stock split in August 2007, giving many seniors a useful income stream in their retirement. These days, the dividend is one cent per quarter.

But after some painful cost-cutting and the sale of non-core businesses, the bank appears to have stabilised and has delivered a succession of quarterly profits.

For Somers Ltd, the decade was a very different story. Shares of its predecessor, Bermuda Commercial Bank Ltd, closed 2005 on $8. The bank experienced a period of near dormancy for four years after previous owner John Deuss became involved in a fraud investigation involving another bank he owned in Curacao.

The bank was eventually sold to a group of investors called Permanent in 2010. As its investments had been very conservative, BCB came through the financial crisis unscathed. The new owners built up the business through acquisitions or investments in several financial-services company under the banner of holding company Somers.

By the end of 2015, its shares had risen nearly 53 per cent from the year-end 2005 price. In the same period, it racked up about $4.40 per share in dividends, adding another 50 per cent-plus to the ten-year return.

For the utilities, it was a miserable decade, as long-term shareholders of Ascendant Group and KeyTech can attest.

Both companies fell victim to the effects of a declining population, as thousands of expatriate workers left the Island, and the slowing economy.

For Ascendant, the parent company of Belco, net earnings fell from $28.5 million in 2005 to $5.8 million in 2014. Electricity sales were significantly lower in 2014, at 577 million kilowatt hours (kWh) than the 616 million kWh sold in 2005, and much lower than the 2009 peak of 656 million kWh.

Belco’s share price was $20.17 at the end of 2005 and plunged 76 per cent during the decade to $4.80. The losses were offset by $7 per share in dividends.

One of KeyTech’s major challenges was the rapid changes in telecommunications technology, which rendered landline voice traffic — once a solid earner — increasingly obsolete and ushered in a wave of wireless competitors.

It has managed to reinvent itself since the days when it was known predominantly as the parent company of BTC. The modern KeyTech is an internet powerhouse, which owns Logic Communications and Bermuda CableVision, but which has offloaded BTC. Its development will continue apace following US company Atlantic Tele-Network’s acquisition of a controlling interest in KeyTech, a deal that holds the promise of further investment in cutting-edge technology.

KeyTech’s transformation has not been an easy ride for shareholders, who saw their shares fall in price from $13 to $3, a fall of 77 per cent. Operating revenues fell from more than $97 million in 2005 to $81 million in 2014, while during the same period, net earnings almost halved from $10 million to $5.7 million.

The $4.77 in dividends paid out during the period provided some consolation.

The two BSX-listed local insurers had very different experiences during the decade, as Argus Group lost nearly two-thirds of its share value, while BF&M shed about 9 per cent.

The standout difference between the two insurers seems to have been their investment risk appetites. Argus paid a heavy price for its investments in local equities, especially Butterfield Bank, which required it to book huge losses as the impact of the financial crisis unfolded. BF&M, with the steady hand of chief executive officer John Wight on the tiller, took a more conservative approach. This enabled the firm to not only withstand the financial crisis much better, but also left the company strong enough to grow by acquisition, particularly through buying insurers in Barbados and the Cayman Islands.

Looking at the results, the market has not given much credit to BF&M for its impressive growth. At the end of 2005, BF&M’s share price was $18.50. During that year its net earnings were $16.9 million, while shareholders’ equity totalled $84.6 million. In 2014, net earnings had climbed to $24.7 million, while shareholders’ equity had almost tripled to $240.5 million, yet its share price had fallen to $16.85.

Another notable achievement for BF&M was that it bucked the BSX trend of declining dividends. The firm ended 2005 with a quarterly dividend of 14 cents per share. That had climbed to 22 cents per share by the end of last year. Long-term shareholders received about $7.70 per share in dividends over the decade.

Argus shareholders saw their shares slump 64 per cent from $11.25 at the end of 2005 to $4.04 at the end of last year. Around $3.16 per share in dividends was some consolation.

In the financial year ended March 2006, Argus recorded net earnings of $27 million, as its investment portfolio boomed. Shareholders’ equity at that time topped $260 million. In the year ended March 2015, Argus’s net income was $16 million, while shareholders’ equity — which had slumped as low as $82 million in 2011 — stood at just above $118 million.