Early signs of re-energised sales at Jetcon Corporation were erased with the emergence of the COVID-19 disease. The pre-owned car dealer has now descended into losses, but has a game plan to reverse the bleed that includes putting in fewer orders...
Investor jitters have kept the stock market depressed through the coronavirus crisis, but Barita Investments Limited is about to test whether investors are ready to get back into the game. One investment company previously pulled back its...
In a paint market where it has long reigned supreme, Berger is seeing a slippage of its hold on the market, and now it wants to claw it back. Typically, the August to December period is the peak season for paint. It is generally recognised as the...
Supreme Ventures Limited, SVL, has added a new business line which will see the company providing back-office support services to clients. Circumstances have forced the company to become more agile at a period when jobs and disposable income have...
In the first of a new class of listings, Jamaica’s largest credit union has introduces shares on the main market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange. Community...
F reed from its lossmaking sugar operation, Seprod Limited more than doubled its net earnings in the quarter ending June. The company also grew sales by double digits, while keeping spending in check – gains that flowed from the consolidation of...
The Fair Trading Commission, FTC, has given the nod to GraceKennedy’s acquisition of an 80 per cent stake in Key Insurance Company, which gives the conglomerate an additional share of the general insurance market in which it is already among the...
Finance and Planning Minister Dr Nigel Clarke has put the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) in charge of a feasibility study on unemployment insurance, or UI. The idea has been tossed around for many years as a safety net for workers who are...
For two years, a company called Fuel Deals Express, FDE, has been carving out market share in the competitive petroleum sector through a service built around exclusivity and membership. Don’t arbitrarily drive up to the single island at FDE, cash...
Health insurance providers are reshaping the way they do business to deal with the fallout or exploit opportunities from the COVID-19 pandemic, which they say has not been as harmful to their business as first anticipated. In what they describe as...
With no vaccine or treatment yet developed, there is a lot of ‘guesstimating’ that the COVID-19 coronavirus may be around for at least another year, but more likely two, and that people and systems will have to adjust. That includes the insurance...
Bread maker Consoli-dated Bakeries, which trades as Purity Bakery, racked up $12.49 million in losses last year, despite a six per cent gain in revenues. It represented a near 200 per cent decline in earnings for the company that made a profit of...
FOOD COMPANY Nestlé Jamaica Limited is back in the dairy market as a distributor of whole milk products made on its behalf under a contract- packaging deal with Seprod Limited. The Swiss-owned company had all but exited that line of business more...
In good times when markets are bullish, companies that hold stocks and bonds tend to report solid earnings, but when the market goes south, so can their bottom lines under the much-maligned accounting Rule 9 of the International Financial Reporting...
A picture of mixed fortunes in manufacturing is emerging from the full onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Jamaica. Amid the layoffs, cost-cuttings and supply chain challenges, and issues with the availability of foreign exchange, President of the...
CARIBBEAN PRODUCERS Jamaica, CPJ, racked up over half-million in losses in the March quarter due to the lockdown of tourism businesses, a sector from which much of its income flows. The COVID-19 pandemic derailed the earnings of the company, coming...
Keith Duncan as CEO of the JMMB Group and president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) must have had a lot on his mind while in an all-day board meeting last Friday. He is clear, though, of the impact which the deadly coronavirus...
Car-rental companies in Jamaica are facing a serious crush, with at least one medium player looking to shut down operations, and others, big and small, saying that they are barely holding on. The collapse in the vacation market and travel...
SUPREME VENTURES Limited, SVL, has locked down its Acropolis gaming lounge since March 18, when the Government mandated the closure of all lounges and bars. Sports wagering has fallen precipitously, concomitant with the suspension of sporting...
Jamaica’s 25 credit unions will not host annual general meetings (AGMs) during the early stages of the coronavirus crisis, for which they would have needed permission from Registrar of Co-operatives Errol Gallimore. The registrar has taken a...
B usiness continuity insurance will not cover Jamaican companies in the event of losses arising from the effects of the COVID-19 coronavirus. That’s the word from the general insurance sector, while businesses contemplate the likely fallout from...
Berger Paints Jamaica Limited is entering the retail market with a line of its own stores as the paint maker tries to claw back market share and rebuild profits. At one time, Berger was considered to have control of 80-90 per cent of the Jamaican...
Caribbean Producers Jamaica will report back to bondholders Friday on progress made in bringing its financial ratios back into compliance with debt covenants, in a follow up to a meeting held six months ago. CPJ Chairman and interim CEO Mark Hart...
Tech company Amber Group Limited has partnered with National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited, NCB, on a new mobile wallet called Amber Pay It will be NCBJ’s second mobile payment system; the other being Quisk, which has been on the market for two...
P aramount Trading (Jamaica) Limited has sealed a manufacturing and private labelling services agreement with local fuel marketer Future Energy Source Company Limited, Fesco, for its line of lubricants. The $216-million deal runs for three years...
