Trinidad’s Readmix goes private

July 14, 2017 by

TCL now has 97.23% of Readymix shares.

Trinidad Cement (TCL) acquired most of the shares of Readymix following the offer to minority shareholders to buy out their shares at TT$11 each.
Following the offer TCL now owns 97.23 percent of the Readymix shares. TCL in a recent release advised the minority shareholders that they can still sell their shares to the company and they also advised that an application was made to the Trinidad Stock Exchange to have the Readymix shares delisted.
Readymix has struggled to make a profit recently and with the Trinidad economy in recession, the situation became worse and would require finding areas of cost to cut to get the operations into a state of minimal cost. Acquisition of all the shares would end up reducing cost in a number of areas.

Filed Under: Company News, General Business News, Street News & Views Tagged With: , ,

Devon House I Scream same old taste new experience

July 9, 2017 by

Inside the new Devon House Ice Cream store.

Ice Cream is a welcomed delicacy, meant to be a titivating experience for the palate. What better way to fill the delectable urgings than to make the experience of acquiring the sought after product, pleasant, if not delightfully.
Devon House Ice Cream, a favourate with Jamaicans and visitors alike, saw an increasing number of patrons descending on its primary point of sale, in droves in what was then a crammed and uninviting space particularly on weekends and public holidays. The company operating the store, has moved the experience to a much higher level, with their new and spacious store at a new location at Devon House.
A recent visit, admittedly, around 1 PM on a Sunday, made the experience noticeable. There was abundant space, with good spacing for the cashiers section hosting a number of machines for booking orders and a wide expanse for orders to be placed and collected. Gone are the limited space that required patrons to move outside while waiting on orders to be filled. Gone too are the numbering system now replaced by stanchions guiding patrons towards to area for delivery of the orders.
All in all it is a much improved experience and one that customers are sure to delight in, especially when they compare it with the former slave trade like experience of persons being cramped into a small space awaiting orders.

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This SOS IPO who are the connections?

July 4, 2017 by

The McDaniel family owned Stationery and Office Supplies (SOS) after 50 years of serving their more than 3,000 clients, are heading in a new direction. No longer content to hug up 100 percent of the company the family is now are embarking enjoining the public to ride on with them to the next level.

In furtherance of this new thrust SOS is now seeking to list on the Jamaica Stock Exchange Junior Market with an initial public offering 50,024,100 ordinary shares, to raise approximately $95,048,200 before expenses. The issue is inclusive of 22,500,000 reserved shares some of which are being sold at $1.60 for staff, with the rest being made available to the general public at $2 per share the offer opening at 9 on July 19th, with the closing set for 4:30 P.M. on July 26th.
The Company reported pretax profits of $53 million in 2016, from sales of $702 million, with earnings of 26.5 cents per share, resulting in a PE of 7.5 before tax. Earnings for 2017 is estimated at around 40 cents on a pretax basis at an attractive PE of 5.6 times 2017 earnings. Revenues for the first six months of 2017, are up almost 20 percent over the similar period in 2016. Office furnishing and fixtures account for approximately 60 percent of sales revenues and stationery and office supplies for 40 percent management advised IC Insider.com.
The Company estimates that the expenses in the invitation will not exceed $12,000,000 inclusive of General Consumption Tax and an expanded marketing and publicity spend, expected to not only drive interest in the IPO but create greater awareness about the company. and its products.
Minimum raise| The Company needs to raise at least $50,000,000 to qualify for listing on the Junior Market. If that amount is not achieved an application will not be made for the shares to be admitted to the Junior Market and all funds will be returned to the persons who made them.
History| The Company started business in July 1965 under the guidance of Richard Hing, George Hew and David McDaniel. In 1970, the Company became wholly owned by the McDaniel family when all of the issued ordinary shares were acquired by David and Marjorie McDaniel. The Company now operates out of a 35,000 square feet warehouse, office and showroom on Beechwood Avenue in Kingston and a 3,000 square feet location in Montego Bay that houses 1,200 square feet of office and showroom space and a 1,800 square foot warehousing facility supported by a staff complement of sixteen. The Head Office currently employs eighty-three team members. Eleven delivery vehicles are operated by the company including trucks, which support delivery to customers.
Products|The Company now sells and market office supplies and stationery items, modular office furniture, partitions, metal products, chairs, cabinets and shelving. The Company is the sole local distributor for the leading international brands in office furniture – Fursys and Boss. In 2011, lower priced items were introduced to meet growing demand, by introducing the first of two proprietary brands, the first being the “Image” brand and shortly thereafter in 2012, the Company introduced its second brand “Torch”. SOS also does a small amount of sales to the eastern Caribbean and will be seeking expand business into that Region. According to the company’s management, the increased warehouse space will be critical to this effort. A lesser known service the company carries out, is the servicing of office equipment. This area they indicate has room for increased revenues and profit.

During the last six years, the Company added commercial shredding to its suite of services offered to the general public.  The service has become popular among entities which have large volumes of waste paper and other sensitive material that stores data, but are concerned about improper disposal methods. The Company’s states that its “shredding facility meets international best practice standards and has the capacity to shred up to 5,000 pounds of paper per day as well as the destruction of tapes, hard drives and compact discs. The Company’s shredding facility offers the customer the ability to view an on-line real-time video stream of the shredding process being undertaken on-site on their behalf, or if preferred the customer may also be present when the shredding process is being undertaken”.
The directors of the company are, David McDaniel, Marjorie McDaniel, Allan McDaniel, Stephen Todd, Kerri (McDaniel) Todd, Kelli (McDaniel) Muschett, Anthony Bell, Gary “Butch” Hendrickson and Evan Thwaites.

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D&G & HEART sign traning agreement

June 30, 2017 by

Noel DaCosta, Chairman, D&G Foundation congratulates, Antonette Richman on completion of level 2 of the Skills initiative as classmates look on.

D&G Foundation through a partnership with the HEART Trust NTA, 2500 young Jamaicans will be trained under the Foundation’s Learning For Life Project Employability Programme.
With the targeted number of trainees this year, project employability is poised to help the Foundation deliver on its ambition of training 15,000 young apprentices by 2018, a release from the foundation states. Approximately 12,000 Jamaicans have already benefited from training programmes under the Learning For Life Programme since its inception in 2008. Funding for the programme is provided by the D&G Foundation which is the charitable arm of Jamaica’s beer producer Desnoes and Geddes.
Full tuition support for qualified students enrolled in the various modules at HEART in the first phase of the programme is covered by the Foundation. The project started on June 5, also includes courses in Social Media Management, Small Business Management.

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Scotia Equity Fund tops at 39%

June 26, 2017 by

Scotia Investments Capital growth Fund tops in last 12 months.

Getting the best out of one’s investment requires regular reviews and sometimes changes to what we may consider prime holdings. A look at some of the high flying Jamaica Stock Exchange listings this year, tells the story pretty well.
The prices of many rose to exceedingly high valuations, on the back of strong buying, only to see prices fall back later with selling exceeding buying, as investors who bought low, offloaded their holdings, booking profit in the process.
That many may go on to recover losses incurred as a result of buying close to or near the top. In a number of cases, it may take quite some time to recover fully, while other opportunities to profit may go by. The Jamaica Stock Exchange share traded at $13.50 but now trades at $7 or Cargo Handlers trading at a high of $30, and is now at $16 and could fall some more with the price still seeming to be about 50 percent too high. Getting back to the top for these two will be challenging in the short term.
What then is happening to securities that move in a more mild-mannered than stocks but better than money market instruments? Unit trusts are a pooled investment vehicle that are managed by experienced persons.
Many persons only want to know that their investment grow at a reasonable pace and not so much on the rate of return, that will not be good stewardship of their resources. Investors should review their portfolio at least once per year and make changes where needed.
A close look at the Unit Trust bi weekly report that are published in the Jamaica Observer and Jamaica’s Daily Gleaner is revealing. Not all stocks are alike so it is with the pooled Unit Trust investment funds.
The performance of the Unit Trust funds vary from one to another. The equity based growth funds varied from 39 percent growth in case of Scotia Investments Premium Growth Fund, to a low of 28.47 percent for Sagicor Sigma Equity Fund for the last 12 months to date. Coming second, is Barita Investments Capital Growth with 34.55 percent. For 2017 to June 22, NCB Capital Markets equity fund delivered 29 percent for the last 12 months, but is the leading equity linked Unit Trust funds with gains of 21 percent, Scotia Investments Premium Growth Fund, is just behind, at 20.4 percent, edging out Barita Investments with 19.7 percent. JMMB Fund Managers landed 31 percent for the last 12 months and 18.9 percent since January with their Income and Growth Fund.
Sagicor and VM Unit Trust lag in the equity category, while Barita Investments FX Growth Portfolio fell 10 percent for the last 12 months and 5.7 percent since 2017 and the real estate fund, slipped 3 percent for the last 12 months and 5.7 percent for 2017 to date.
Returns on money market funds have been much more competitive with returns mostly around 5 percent annualized.

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Big gains for 2016 IPOS

June 26, 2017 by

I$P Finance is up 1,100% since listing in March 2016 but hit an all time high of $35 earlier this year to be up 1,650% at that time.

Initial Public listings have been very popular in the Jamaican stock market. Most of them enjoyed strong gains within a few years of issue.
Investors have bought heavily into most of the issues resulting in most closing on the first day of the issue.
No doubt investors will be avidly awaiting issues to come in the second half of this year. Expecting this week is Productivity Business Solution IPO should be available of subscription in the first week of July and Express Catering should be coming pretty soon as well.
A series of others should be following later in 2017 and in 2018 with Stationery and Supplies expected to follow shortly after the above two, as they iron out a few issues before coming to market, while UCC Online still has issues to resolve. Others that have been recently mentioned publicly and a few that have not yet made public statements, should add to the excitement when they do make it and swell the choices available in the market for ongoing investment.
How have recent IPOS done since listing? Stocks sold to the publish and listed since the start of 2016 had mixed fortunes, with startup entities delivering little gains with one trading lower than the IPO price but four have gained 200 percent or more including one with more than 1,000 percent, one rising 64 percent and one with 34 percent, up to last Friday.
Little known micro finance company, ISP Finance gained a stunning 1,100 percent, since listing in March 2016. Pre-owned car dealer, Jetcon Corporation is up with gains of 687 percent since March last year with information technology, company tTech coming in with gains of 220 percent.
Portland JSX Fund lost 18 percent, while start up general insurance company, Iron Rock is up just 7 percent. All stocks traded at higher prices than the closing ones on Friday.

Filed Under: Company News, General Business News, Initial Public Offers Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Ansa’s Berger T&T holdings to hit 81%

June 26, 2017 by

Carib Beer brewed in Trinidad by Ansa McAl Group

Trinidad based conglomerate, ANSA McAL is set to acquire an additional 9.7 percent of Berger Paints in Trinidad. The acquisition if concluded, will give the group just under 81 percent of the company.
The group through subsidiary, ANSA Coatings International, through an International Business Company established in St Lucia, entered into a Share Purchase Agreement with Chan Ramlal Limited for the acquisition of 500,000 shares in Berger T&T, a release to the Trinidad & Tobago Stock Exchange stated. The ANSA McAL group already holds, 60,606 ordinary shares representing 1.17 percent in Berger.
On 16th June, 2017, ANSA McAL entered into a Share Purchase Agreement with Berger International Private for the acquisition of all of the 1,869,805 ordinary shares in Lewis Berger (Overseas Holdings). Lewis Berger owns 3,613,011 ordinary shares in Berger Trinidad, representing 70 percent of the shareholding, 100 percent of the 376,000 equity shares, of Berger Paints Barbados and 109,332,222 ordinary shares, representing 51 percent of the shareholding of Berger Paints Jamaica.

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2nd buy out for Access Financial in a year

June 21, 2017 by

Junior market listed micro financier, Access Financial Services has acquired the loan portfolio, fixed assets and trade name of Micro Credit Limited, a release to the Jamaica Stock Exchange revealed. The acquisition is the second make by the company in just over a year.
The CEO of Access Financial, Marcus James, says “the acquisition is in keeping with the company’s overall expansion plan to grow its share of the local micro lending market. The business combination will see MCL continuing to serve the micro credit customers using its existing methodologies which have been proven both locally and internationally in that segment of the market resulting in above average portfolio performance. The alignment of the two entities will also result in efficiencies of scale.”
MCL was established in 2003 and has 6 branches islandwide. Christopher Williams, Proven Investments CEO stated earlier this month, that MCL was around the same size as Damark which were acquired by Access in May 2016 at a cost of $180 million which included, the loan portfolio of $148.7 million.
In 2015, Access acquired the loan portfolios of Asset Management Company and Appliance Traders for just over $500 million.

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Berger to have new owner

June 18, 2017 by

Berger Paints Jamaica along with the Berger Paints in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados will have new owners, later this year as Ansa Coatings International (ACIL), a subsidiary of the sprawling Trinidad and Tobago conglomerate, ANSA McAL Group entered into an agreement with Berger International Private Limited to acquire Lewis Berger (Overseas Holding) Limited.
Lewis Berger (Overseas Holding) owns 51% of the issued share capital in Berger Paints Jamaica. Berger Paints Trinidad and Tobago is 70 percent owned by its parent Lewis Berger and is listed on the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange and last traded on June 12, at TT$4.05, but trades infrequently. Berger Paints Barbados Limited is owned fully by the parent company.
The combined Berger Caribbean business net sales is put at US$35 million, a statement by Ansa McAl states. The completion of the transaction is subject to conditions set out in the agreement between BIPL and ACIL. ANSA Coatings and its subsidiary, produces, market and distributes coatings in the categories of decorative and architectural, wood finishes, automotive, light and heavy duty industrial and marine under the following brands: Penta, Sissons, Glidden, Nexa Autocolor, Aquabase Line, Devoe and International.
Group Chairman and Chief Executive of the ANSA McAL Group, A. Norman Sabga noted that the acquisition will further enhance the Group’s position in the Caribbean architectural coatings market. “Berger is best known for its well-positioned paint brands throughout the region. The architectural coatings industry has enjoyed a period of healthy innovation over the last decade.

Carib Beer brewed in Trinidad by Ansa McAl Group

Through this acquisition, we hope to address an expanded customer base with a broader suite of product offerings and superior levels of customer service and support”, Sabga concluded.

At this stage it is unclear exactly how the new owners when the deal is concluded will move forward with the expanded paint group. The acquisition has far reaching ramification for ANSA Coatings. This means that products imported into Jamaica from Trinidad can be produced in the plant in Jamaica while the two plants in Trinidad can be merged into one, both actions would result in significant savings and improved profit margins. The Barbados could be served by exports out of Trinidad.
ANSA McAL is a diversified Public Conglomerate, listed on the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange, with subsidiaries in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, Guyana, Grenada and the USA and involved in the manufacturing, brewing, insurance, finance, real estate, media, shipping, trading/distribution and automotive and industrial equipment retailing sectors.

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Jamaica abounds with opportunities

June 18, 2017 by

Attentive shareholders at Jetcon recently held 2017 AGM

The successful performance of Jetcon Corporation since listing in 2016, reveals the rich opportunities that exist in Jamaica for Jamaicans to better themselves financially, chairman of the company, John Jackson said, in addressing shareholders at the company’s first Annual General Meeting, as a public company.
Jackson went on to state “ordinary Jamaicans need adequate education, need to corporate with and trust one another, share our assets in an organized manner and the sky is the limit to what can be achieved’. “Many opportunities exist for Jamaicans to profit from, however, they need to learn how to find them.” This means, with greater financial sophistication born out of knowledge, coupled with the advent and buoyancy of the Junior Market, ordinary Jamaican families can capitalize on various financial prospects that exist in the country”. The success of Jetcon and other newer businesses in the country suggests the need for an intervention of the Jamaican authorities to educate Jamaicans on the immense opportunities that exist to lift their quality of life through financial education and investments by pooling of their financial resources.
Jackson was speaking against the back drop of Jetcon Corporation’s doubling in profits for 2016 with preliminary data to May 2017, showing revenues rising by 75 percent and profit of approximately 150 percent over 2016.

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