Despite the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the Caribbean’s largest conglomerates, says it has “started the financial year 2021 well”.
Robert Bermudez, chairman of Massy Holdings and its subsidiaries, which are headquartered in Port-of- Spain, made the comments in a statement accompanying the unaudited consolidated financial statements of the group for the first quarter (Q1) ending December 31, 2020.
Profit for the quarter stood at TT$188.418 million (BDS$62.896 million).
This was an increase of TT$21.224 million (BDS$7.074 million) more than for the same quarter in the previous year.
For the quarter, the group paid TT$92.80 million in taxes, which was just over TT$10 million more than what it paid for the comparable quarter in 2020.
According to Bermudez: “The new financial year commenced under similar pandemic restrictions under which all of the countries in which we operate ended the financial year 2020.
“The economies of those countries are all performing worse during the first quarter of 2021, than they were in [the first quarter of 2020] when the pandemic had not yet hit the region.”
The well-known Trinidadian businessman told shareholders that notwithstanding these challenges, the Massy Group of investment holdings started the financial year well.
Bermudez added: “The group’s third-party revenue from continuing operations grew by 1.4 per cent from TT$3.21 billion (BDS$1.07 billion) in the [first quarter of the financial year 2021].
Operating profit after finance costs grew by 19 per cent, aided by strong growth in the integrated retail portfolio, financial services line of business and motors and machines portfolio, as well as favourable expense management and income generation in the Corporate Office.”
The Massy Group (former Neal & Massy) owns substantial assets in Barbados. This, as a result of its acquisition of Barbados Shipping & Trading in a hostile take over following a bidding war with the ANSA McAL in 2007.
Those assets span distribution, retail, insurance, and real estate. Across the Caribbean, Colombia and South Florida in the United States, the Massy Group employs approximately 12 000.
In his forecast, the Massy chairman said the conglomerate anticipated that for most of the financial year, the group will continue to operate under pandemic restrictions in most countries in which it operated.
“Although vaccines have begun to be rolled out in developed countries, we recognise it will take more time to get to many of the countries in our region at the scale needed to dramatically change the current operating paradigm.
“As we begin financial year 2021, we see the portfolio structure of the Group continuing to provide more autonomy and participation for executives and professionals in the portfolios, to drive the successes of their businesses, as they unleash their creativity and ambition.” (IMC1)
