One of the original local companies listed on the Bermuda Stock Exchange has announced plans to withdraw after 35 years due to burdensome reporting requirements and a huge fee increase.

On June 14, shareholders of Masters Ltd. voted in favour of the motion to withdraw from listing on the BSX. The delisting will take place on September 13.

The long pondered decision boils down to one simple fact, according to Masters president and CEO Susan Wilson. The BSX has simply "outgrown" Masters.

"The BSX has become a very large, company-oriented exchange and the burden for us to remain on the exchange is just too great given our very limited administrative resources," she said.

While Masters struggled to keep up with the Exchange's reporting requirements "which are as stringent as those found on much larger exchanges" it also was finding little reason to belong on the BSX since there is "no liquidity", "basically only two buyers" and little other benefit save for a slight saving in stamp duty for shareholders, she said.

However the straw that broke the camel's back was the BSX's decision to raise Masters fees.

"The BSX started out as a formalisation of trading of local shares with basically only local people doing it.

"Then all of sudden we had this BSX with all these fancy rules and requirements and whopping big fees and everything.

" There comes a time when you have to say okay, we tried to support it for as many years as we could but when you get 100 percent increase in fees you have to say enough is enough," she said.

She adds that delisting also means that the company will no longer have to share information with competitors.

Masters is the third local company to announce plans to delist from the BSX in the past year. While SAL Ltd. announced plans earlier this year to delist because it was acquired by Phillips Holdings, in April 2005, Long Botham Boats Co. Ltd. ? the parent company of the Henry VIII's Pub and Restaurant and owner of Robin Hood through a subsidiary company ? also left the exchange.

While the company had several reasons for delisting, it too noted that disclosure requirements meant revealing company information to competitors.

It also noted a lack of significant share activity, the fact the BSX was not a traditional source of the company's capital and a beneficial reduction in audit fees for non-public companies.

Ms Wilson says that while the Exchange's growth has not suited her company, she has no criticism for the direction the Exchange has taken.

The growth has been good for Bermuda as it moves to develop as a big financial centre, she said.

Whle the Exchange has 23 domestic issuers including Masters, it has more than 400 international listings.

Yesterday, BSX CEO Greg Wojciechowski said it was sad to see any company delist since going public is "usually viewed as the apex of corporate development in modern capital markets as it enables a company to illustrate its commercial maturity and its ability and willingness to meet regulatory standards".

"One of the nice things about Bermuda is we had many local companies and even though we are a smaller jurisdiction it did show there was depth to our local companies.

The issue is always trading but it is a small market and people like to buy and hold stock but that doesn't obviate the need for those shareholders to have a basic level of investor protection which is afforded by stock exchange regulation," he said.