Hoo departure from SVL was not the plan, says Mayberry
Published:Sunday | October 4, 2020 | 12:07 AMSteven Jackson - Senior Business Reporter
Mayberry Investments Limited CEO Gary Peart now presides as executive chairman over large gaming group Supreme Ventures Limited, SVL, but Mayberry’s chairman and SVL director Christopher Berry says it was never their intent to take an active role in the company when it changed ownership three years ago.
The strategy was to acquire the shares, while leaving co-founder Paul Hoo involved in the operations of the business, Berry said regarding the takeover in October 2017, when the company’s Greek owners, Intralot SA, sold their controlling stake in the Jamaican company to Trinidadian investors.
SVL shares are now worth $39.4 billion, based on their current stock market value. Mayberry and its client Zodiac, which is represented by director Nicholas Mouttet, together hold almost half the shares.
“In the case of SVL, our client and partner has never been active as a manager of the company. He is a pure investor, and his hope was that Paul Hoo was going to continue running SVL after he got control of the company. Unfortunately, Mr Hoo decided to move on, and so he asked us to step in,” said Berry at the latest Mayberry Virtual Investor Forum on Thursday in response to a question from audience member and investment banker Mark Croskery.
“Us stepping in is not normally a role we take, or are interested in taking, or even consider. In fact, when we were doing the SVL transaction, it was not on the cards,” he said.
The events made headlines at the time not only because of the takeover, but also the boardroom drama around it. The stories then included reports that Mayberry West Indies Limited and connected parties had sought an extraordinary meeting of shareholders to remove seven directors from the board, including Paul Hoo, who was then the chairman.
“I really do not have a quote to give,” said Hoo on Friday when asked to comment on Berry’s take on the events.
Hoo became chairman of Supreme Ventures in 2004 after the death of co-founder Peter Stewart. Before that he was CEO of Supreme Ventures from 2001 up to 2003 when the company appointed the late Brian George in that role.
Hoo exited the company in 2018 as a consultant, having demitted the chair in 2017. He was succeeded as chairman by David McConnell after the takeover in October of that year, when Intralot Caribbean Ventures sold its 49.9 per cent of SVL to Zodiac Caribbean Ventures and Mayberry Jamaican Equities. Zodiac, which is owned by Trinidad & Tobago-based investors, currently owns 30 per cent and Mayberry 15 per cent.
“A lot of people do not understand our model,” Berry said, explaining Mayberry’s modus operandi regarding its equity investments.
“We partner with other companies and our role, 90 per cent of the time, is to support them in the background and to help them with the investment banking and financing,” he told the forum.
The company typically takes equity positions of up to 20 per cent in various businesses while leaving the management and founders to run the operations.
“We are not interested in operating these companies, we just invest in them,” Berry said.
SVL is an exception. Peart became non-executive chairman of SVL in June 2019, succeeding David McConnell, who stepped down to focus on other business but remained on the SVL board.
The Mayberry CEO was appointed as executive chairman nine months later, effectively filling the operational role that Group CEO Ann-Dawn Young Sang played up to her surprise exit from the company towards the end of March this year.
Peart said on Friday that the position was not permanent, and that he would revert to a non-executive role as chairman once a new group CEO has been recruited and confirmed in the position left vacant by Young Sang.