Proven paid US$18.6 million or J$2.05 billion for FGFS a note in the company’s latest audited report stated. In April Grace Kennedy stated in a release to the stock exchange that the transaction is valued at $3.05 billion but excludes the seat on the Jamaican Stock exchange which the Grace group will keep.
Grace Kennedy advised the stock exchange of the finalization of divestment of the shares held by subsidiary, First Global Holdings Limited in First Global Financial Services Limited (FGFS) to Proven Investments Limited effective May 30, 2014. Proven has changed of name of the company to PWL Transition Ltd. Proven have also indicated to the public that the name has been changed to and closed the former FGFS offices at Duke Street in Kingston, Ward Street in Mandeville and Bogue in Montego Bay relocating the operations to existing Proven offices in those locations.
Proven made profit of US$3.78 million for the year to March 2014 compared with US$4.2 million in 2013 from lower revenues of US$13.2 versus US$14.4 million.
Proven closes FGFS deal at $2B
Remittance growth continues
Net remittances rose US$11 million or 7.8 percent in February this year over the similar period in 2013, ending at US$152 million. The growth in net remittance inflows reflected an increase in inflows and a contraction of outflows.
Gross inflows for the month amounted to US$168 million, an increase of US$8 million or 5.1 percent versus the corresponding month of 2013. The rise in total remittance inflows emanated from an increase of US$11 million in inflows through Remittance Companies. The increase in these flows was partly offset by a reduction of US$2.4 million in inflows from Other Remittances.
Net remittances for the two months to February this year was US$290 million, an increase of US$19 million or 7.0 per cent relative to 2013 and emanates from an increase in gross remittance inflows and a contraction in outflows.
For the review period, total remittance inflows amounted to US$327 million, an increase of US$12 million or 3.9 percent.
JSE needs revamping
There are clearly some major weaknesses at the Jamaica Stock Exchange but no one wants to fix it, not its executive management or any of the board of directors.
Those close to the JSE may feel that there are persons with a vendetta for them but nothing could be further than the truth. The problem is that in many cases, situations that make no sense are brought to their attention and no one does anything about it. Take the matter of the daily stock market report. It has been brought to the attention of the JSE that the report is erroneous as it does not summate the volume and value properly. For example, the volume associated with the main market includes the preference shares. However, those shares don’t form a part of the index and therefore should not be reported as such. Also, the market volume does not include Proven Investments shares even as it is reported on the daily report.
The information below is an extract of stock exchange report taken from Tuesday’s trading:
“Market volume amounted to 3,444,116 units valued at over $18,332,628. Jamaica Money Market Brokers Limited 8.75% was the volume leader with 2,827,574 units (51.74%) followed by LIME with 1,850,500 units (33.86%) and Jamaica Broilers Ltd. with 435,184 units (7.96%).”
As reported, the volume of Cable & Wireless and JMMB preference shares adds to nearly 4.7 million shares yet the report says 3.4 million traded. What sort of nonsense is this? How can the stock exchange publish such erroneous information and no one does anything about it? In fact, there was trading in 6.27 million shares on Tuesday not 3.44 million.
Then there continues to be the matter of Cable & Wireless Jamaica that did not change its name, but changed its brand name to Lime. The Stock Exchange lists the ordinary shares as Lime and the preference shares as Cable & Wireless. However, there is no limited liability company with the name Lime, so why the JSE continues this practise is beyond good reasoning. Worse yet, is to have one listing as Lime and two as Cable & Wireless in the preference segment gives the wrong impression that these are two separate companies.
The JSE hardly made money in 2014, yet it pushed First Caribbean International Bank off the Exchange. This action happened shortly after the JSE went public at an elevated price, which would suggest that they would want to retain as much income as possible, but no, they delisted the bank, thus cutting its income and depriving some local investors the ready access to trade in those shares locally.
Another matter that the JSE needs to deal with is the 15 percent rule, which was instituted in the 1990s when it was thought that the rule would prevent wild swings in prices. The rule may be useful when prices are in triple digits, but when a stocks sells for less than $20, it makes little sense. Barbados has a similar rule, but they suspend trading in the stock for 15 minutes to allow information to go out to investors and then re-open trading. The rule that states that a stock cannot move by more than 15 percent in a day is far too restrictive and prevents liquidity in the stock until the price gets equilibrium. Jamaica must move to the more enlightened Barbados regulation in this regard.
Related posts | First Caribbean may be delisted | JSE IPO oversubscribed by 41%
Better fiscal out turn to February
The Government of Jamaica bettered the fiscal out turn to February by $2.9 billion compared to the budgeted target. The improved performance was the result of revenues for the 11 months declining by $18 billion versus the budgeted amount of $354 billion and expenditure was down as well by $20.9 billion.
For the year to date, revenues are 12 percent ahead of 2013 fiscal year out turn of $336 million. With the March figures to be reported in April, revenues for the full year should increase to end in line with the growth to date and be around $385 billion compared with $344 billion at the end of March last year, assuming no major unexpected inflows.
The results to date, along with the March inflows and with the target of a primary surplus of 7.5 percent for the fiscal year, should result in the fiscal out turn ending in surplus for the first time in many years. At the end of February, the primary surplus was at $78 billion or $34 billion below the target of $111 billion set at the start of the fiscal year. Achieving this target would result in a surplus of $10 billion.
On the surface there will be concerns that revenues for February at $31.3 billion are lower than for 2013 at $31.5 billion in spite of the increased levy of new taxes at the start of the fiscal year. The apparent poor performance in February this year is due to a big intake of $6.4 billion in withholding taxes on interest, while the 2013 figures include just $2 billion. But for this big one-off inflow, the 2013 revenues would be up 7 percent. Tax revenues are up by $27 billion or 10 percent for the eleven month period with the exclusion of withholding tax on interest.
Related posts | Ministry confirms deficit wipe out | Fiscal deficit improvement continues
Early trade gains wiped out
Jamaica closed out 2013 slightly worse off in the trading account than for 2012 as the trade deficit increased by $56 million. This fully reverses the gains enjoyed to November when the deficit was down by US$289 million.
The out turn for 2013 flowed from expenditure on merchandise imports declining by US$113 million to US$6.22 billion compared to 2012 and a fall in export earnings of US$168 million to reach US$1.56 billion. The trade deficit for 2013 amounted to US$4.66 billion compared to the US$4.6 billion recorded for 2012.
Up to November 2013, imports fell by US$392 million and exports fell by US$112 million resulting in the trade deficit falling by 6.2 percent compared to the similar period in 2012.
Overall imports for the 11 months to 2013 was US$5,664 million, down from US$6.06 billion in the 2012 and exports US$1,442 million, resulting in a trade deficit of US$4.22 billion.
Related posts | Jamaica’s trade deficit improves | Trade deficit gains eroded
Remittances up in January
Jamaica continues to benefit from increased remittance flows as the countries that were negatively affected by the down turn in their economies in 2008 continue to mend.
Net remittances for January 2014 were US$138 million, an increase of US$8 million or 6.2 percent relative to the corresponding period of 2013. The growth in net remittance inflows reflect an increase in gross remittance inflows and a contraction in outflows.
Gross remittance inflows amounted to US$158 million, an increase of US$4 million or 2.7 percent compared to January last year. The rise in total remittance inflows emanated from an increase of US$6 million in inflows through Remittance Companies and partly offset by a reduction of US$1.4 million in inflows from Other Remittances.
The January increase follows a record year in which Jamaica topped $2B in remittance inflows.
Related posts | 2013 Remittance inflows top $2B | Remittance inflows continues up
Economy grew in 2013 but barely
Jamaican economy was able to eke out 0.2 per cent growth in 2013 compared to the previous year, preliminary estimate from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) shows. The moderate growth rate, which could be revised later, emanated from growth of 1.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2013 compared to the similar quarter of 2012. The fourth quarter growth rate is the strongest for some time but it represents recovery from a period in 2012 when economic activity was negatively affected by Hurricane Sandy.
The economy recorded a growth of 0.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2013 compared to the similar quarter of 2012. Earlier in the year, Statin reported that the Jamaican economy declined by 0.1 per cent in the second quarter and declined by 1.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2013. The country has not enjoyed much growth from 1999 has is shown by the table below.
Growth in the 2013 final quarter resulted from increased output levels in both the Goods Producing industries and Services industries, Statin said.
Statin stated that “the performance in the Goods Producing industries reflects increased activities in Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing (13.1 per cent), benefited from favourable weather conditions, Mining & Quarrying (12.1 per cent) resulting from increased capacity utilization at the bauxite and alumina plants and Construction (2.6 percent) due to an increase in residential housing projects and continued expansion in hotels. Manufacture industry declined by 0.8 per cent”.
All industries within the Services industries recorded increased levels of output with the exception of the Producers of Government Services which declined by 0.2 per cent and the Wholesale & Retail Trade; Repairs; Installation of Machinery & Equipment, which remained relatively unchanged for the period. Higher output levels were recorded for: Hotels & Restaurants (5.5 per cent), Transport, Storage & Communication and Other Services (1.1 per cent), Electricity & Water Supply (1.0 per cent), Finance & Insurance Services (0.4 per cent), Real Estate, Renting & Business Activities (0.3 per cent).
Related posts | Economy declined 0.1% in Q2 | Statin confirms growth of 0.5%
JMMB Insiders sell big
Jamaica Money Market Brokers profits for the year to December 2013 was up 46 percent from ongoing operations putting earnings per share at $1.32 for the nine months period to December, which suggest that the stock is highly undervalued and should be very attractive with a PE of 4 times the 2013/14 earnings.
But some insiders can’t wait for the payoff down the road as the company advised that five related parties sold a total of 9,663,800 JMMB shares during the period March 17 – 18, 2014.
However, this is not the only sale of large amounts in recent times as a connected party sold 1,500,000 of the shares on March 4, 2014. A Director sold a relatively small amount of 31,146 JMMB shares on March 11, 2014 but there was a big sell out of 19,464,448 shares on February 17, 2014.
JMMB is an IC Insider Buy Rated Stock.
Related posts | JMMB in expansion mode| Buy Rated: Ja Teas & JMMB big gains | NCB insider buys, JMMB sells
FX: BOJ action pushes rate down
Thursday, 20 March 2014 | Bank of Jamaica pushed down foreign exchange rate for the Jamaican dollar when it intervened by making funds available to Authorized Dealers and Cambios at a rate of US$1 to J$109.346 for resale at US$1 to J$109.396. This comes against the rate continuing to race after the Central Bank issued a release on Sunday stating that they were willing to lend support to the market. In other words, a veiled attempt at saying the market was being manipulated.
On Sunday the BOJ stated “Against the background of recent movements in the exchange rate, Bank of Jamaica wishes to assure the public that it stands ready to provide support to prevent disorderly conditions from emerging in the foreign exchange market. Since the beginning of March 2014 the exchange rate has depreciated by J$0.93 (0.85%) against the US dollar. This movement over the two-week period compares to a J$0.49 (0.45%) depreciation over the previous two weeks. The faster pace of depreciation has occurred despite increased supply in the foreign exchange market, where volumes from earners for the month to date are higher than for January and February 2014.”
Purchases & Sales | Authorized Dealers bought US$44,344,150 at $109.15 which gained a cent but dumped US$66,475,637 or US$22 million more than the amount bought at $109.42, 24 cents less than on Wednesday, as dealers who were hording the currency released a large portion of their holdings. In contrast US$41 million was bought on Wednesday and $39 million sold. Between Friday last and Wednesday, dealers bought US$17.5 million more than they sold resulting in a total of $22.7 million surplus of buying over selling of all currencies traded.
There was buying of C$478,746 at $95.34 that was off by $1.50 and selling of C$358,349 at $1.57 down to $97.53. The buying of the pound amounted to £636,781 at $1.94 down to $177.75 and sold £317,117 at $181.16 at 76 cents less than on Wednesday.
Other currencies sold came to the equivalent of US$667,774 with US$635,271 sold.
The total amount of foreign exchange traded came to the equivalent US$46,467,181 being bought and US$67,955,336 sold.
Highs & Lows | The highest buying rate for the US dollar fell 70 cents to $110.30, the lowest was up 25 cents to $88.76 while the highest selling rate came out unchanged at $113.74 and the lowest was up $1.40 to $89.91.
The highest buying rate for the Canadian dollar is down $1.25 to $98.50, the lowest moved down by 62 cents to $77.44. The highest selling rate was lower by 52 cents at $100.63 and $2.40 came off the the lowest rate to end at $93.30.
The highest buying rate for the British Pound is 10 cents down at $183.10, the lowest buying rate gained 21 cents and ended at $144.84, while the highest selling rate climbed $1.59 to $186.71 and the lowest fell $1.90 to $175.10.
Related post | BOJ suggests FX stability close
Inflation plummets
Inflation rate for February plummeted to just 0.1 percent or annualised at only 1.2 percent. The movement in the index for February 2014 resulted in a calendar year-to-date inflation of 0.6 percent.
The latest monthly out-turn is the lowest for since January and February 2011 and except for July 2012 with a negative inflation rate, no other month has come close to it.
The main contributors to the movement were the 0.2 percent advance in the index for the division Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages, the heaviest weighted division, and increases of 0.7 percent each for the divisions Clothing and Footwear and Miscellaneous Goods and Services.
The impact of these increases however was moderated by a 1.2 percent decline in the index for the division Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels as a result of the decline in the cost of electricity, water, and sewage rates. ‘Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco’ rose by 0.2 percent, ‘Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Household Maintenance 0.6 percent, ‘Health 0.2 percent, ‘Transport’ 0.1 percent.
Negligible movement was recorded for ‘Recreation and Culture’ 0.4 percent, ‘Restaurants and Accommodation Services’ 0.1 percent, ‘Miscellaneous Goods and Services’ 0.7 percent, ‘Education’ and ‘Communication’ for the period under review. There was zero inflation in the rural areas during the month.
Related posts | Inflation moderates slightly | 2013 inflation 9.7%, worse than 2012
