The Jamaican economy lost $4.5 billion of real value in the March quarter, numbers that capture just the first three weeks of virus-containment measures that were cited as the cause of the decline. Economic output, measured as gross domestic...
Jamaican telecommunications companies Digicel and FLOW continue to voice concerns that some new directives by the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) to mitigate against shock bills and credit depletion could negatively affect their financials....
Aurora, a Canadian listed cannabis company, has sold its Jamaica asset for less than its CDN$4.5 million valuation in order to get cash. “The company also accepted an offer to sell its Jamaica property for gross proceeds of CDN$3.4 million,” said...
PLAYA RESORTS, which operates hotels in Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Mexico, plans to reopen in July with the pitch of the resorts being a safe space away from the pandemic. The closure of the 23 hotels in its chain since late March will cost...
The operator Jamaica’s two largest airports wants to scrap or delay non-essential capital projects. It forms part of a wider halt of capital projects by the Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico – which translate to Pacific Airport Group, or GAP –...
New Fortress Energy, NFE, is suggesting gas assets will remain competitive, notwithstanding the collapse in oil prices to levels that are comparatively cheaper than natural gas. That’s due to lower maintenance costs and also the expectation that...
king conglomerate NCB Financial Group Limited announced that it has taken a $9 billion hit from COVID-19 so far, with the writedown of investments and foreign currency losses in the March quarter, but it also doubled its provision for credit losses...
TRAINING INSTITUTE iCreate Limited plans to slash costs by one-third to cope with the COVID-19 outbreak and reduce losses highlighted by its auditors. The company needs to shed costs, including $12.5 million in bank overdrafts as at December, to...
Digicel Group chairman Denis O’Brien has put up the telecoms regional headquarters on the Kingston waterfront as collateral under a debt deal with bondholders. The Digicel founder committed to putting up US$50 million – half in cash and the rest in...
JAMAICA’S LARGEST insurance conglomerate, Sagicor Group, says it can weather a three-month shutdown of the country without too big a financial impact, but the longer the health crisis lasts, the more risks the company faces. Sagicor has gamed out...
TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANY Digicel Group announced a halt to interest payments to bondholders for 30 days, which led the rating agency Fitch to downgrade its bonds to ‘C’. Digicel defended its move as an allowed measure, saying the delay comes...
GUEST HOUSE operator Shelly-Ann Johnson is looking to stranded visitors to fill rooms that are being emptied by travel restrictions to stem the spread of the coronavirus. “We want to be a beacon of hope for travellers currently in the island,”...
Michael Riley, who sells vape pens within the burgeoning cannabis trade in Negril, holds a cash card that provides him with flexibility, but only to a certain degree. He doesn’t have a bank account, but uses ePay, a Mastercard-branded cash card...
J amaica’s central bank sealed over US$41.5 million ($5.8 billion) worth of currency swaps with banks and dealers, transactions that were introduced to address volatility in the foreign exchange market. The Bank of Jamaica’s, BOJ’s, overall...
Key Insurance Company directors voted to accept the takeover offer from the GraceKennedy conglomerate to acquire majority stake in the entity, albeit at a steep discount on the stock’s trading price. The GK offer, priced at $2.01 per share, was set...
Brokerage firms rate the TransJamaican Highway, TJH, initial public offering of shares as a buy, with expectations that the stock price will rise in the short term. That’s despite disclosures in the IPO prospectus indicating the toll operator was...
Proven Investments Limited will now be going after US$50 million, in its pending offer of new shares in the company, saying the recalibrated target was set after feedback from the market. Sagicor Investments Jamaica Limited will co-arrange and...
S tarbucks plans to introduce Jamaica high mountain coffee in local stores, a less pricey bean grown in a key region outside the famous Blue Mountains. Experts say it will nudge coffee exports and raise the profile of high mountain coffee, but is...
NCB Financial Group Limited, NCBFG, is taking steps to enter Guyana, likely through its investment banking unit. The Jamaican banking conglomerate has been eyeing a deal to finance oil development in Guyana, just as the South American country and...
Women are entering the formal job market at nearly twice the pace of men, the latest Statistical Institute of Jamaica data indicates. “It is a trend that we are seeing,” said Dr Natalee Simpson, the director of surveys at Statin, during the...
J amaican bunkering company West Indies Petroleum, WIP, which holds the rights to sell Castrol lubricant oil to five Caribbean countries, has appointed a local distributor in Guyana. WIP has held the distributorship for the marine and energy...
First Rock Capital feted investors at one of its development sites in the upscale ‘Golden Triangle’ in Kingston on Thursday, where the start-up private equity company, which is preparing to go public and list on the stock market, also announced...
Key Insurance directors continue to mull options for raising capital, after placing plans for a rights issue on hold. CEO Sandra Masterton confirmed to the Financial Gleaner that “the resolution to vote for the rights issue was withdrawn” and that...
Investors in Proven Investments Limited on Wednesday morning witnessed an apparent hundredfold rise in the share price, which would have rocketed the company’s market capitalisation to US$25 billion, or nearly twice the GDP output of Jamaica, based...
Banking conglomer-ate Scotia Group Jamaica, SGJ, says the deal to sell its insurance arm to Sagicor soured because both parties could not find a sweet spot in the follow-on distribution deal that would have emerged. “The sale would not make sense...
