Rapheal John-Lall

The ANSA McAL group yes­ter­day de­clared af­ter-tax prof­it of $352.8 mil­lion for the first six months of this year, an in­crease of less than 1 per cent com­pared with the same pe­ri­od in 2015.

The group's unau­dit­ed re­sults de­scribed these re­sults as a mod­est im­prove­ment over 2015.

Rev­enues in­creased by $16 mil­lion to $2.88 bil­lion while the Earn­ings Per Share (EPS) im­proved by 1.7 per cent to $1.78 for 2016 com­pared with $1.75 in 2015.

Chair­man of ANSA McAL, Nor­man Sab­ga, at­trib­uted the group's pos­i­tive re­sults de­spite "con­tract­ed mar­ket ac­tiv­i­ty" to its con­glom­er­ate mod­el.

"I al­ways talk about the con­glom­er­ate mod­el and the re­silien­cy and be­ing in so many dif­fer­ent ar­eas and the bal­anc­ing act of one sec­tor be­ing up and the oth­er be­ing down. It has worked well for us. Not every­body has the abil­i­ty to man­age mul­ti­ple or­gan­i­sa­tions in mul­ti­ple dis­ci­plines in dif­fer­ent ju­ris­dic­tions," he said speak­ing yes­ter­day on the 10th Floor of the Tatil Build­ing in Port-of-Spain.

Speak­ing about the group's brew­ery ac­qui­si­tion in Flori­da, he said it has been a suc­cess.

"The Flori­da In­di­an Beer Riv­er Brew­ery Com­pa­ny is the third largest brew­ery in Flori­da. In the month we have been in op­er­a­tion we have al­ready seen a sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment in the re­sults of that or­gan­i­sa­tion. We thought it would have tak­en three to four months to put things in place but with­in a month our man­ag­ing di­rec­tor has been able to do the ba­sics. That was all it took to turn it around. That is a par­tic­u­lar trans­ac­tion that we are ex­cit­ed about. That makes four brew­eries in the group," he said.

He would not say how much the ac­qui­si­tion cost.

In the au­to­mo­tive sec­tor, he said ANSA McAL has been in the "un­for­tu­nate po­si­tion" where two of its sup­pli­ers could not sup­ply re­sult­ing in late sup­plies that af­fect­ed the sec­tor's per­for­mance.

In the me­dia sec­tor, Sab­ga said it is not per­form­ing as the group wish­es, but it is be­ing over­hauled for fu­ture growth.

"It is not great but we are in a re­struc­tur­ing pro­gramme. We are re­or­gan­is­ing. I am proud of the tal­ent we have there," he said.

On the is­sue of a de­pre­ci­a­tion of the TT dol­lar, he said it would be pos­i­tive for man­u­fac­tur­ers.

"I be­lieve that the Fi­nance Min­is­ter said he would de­fend the ex­change rate at $6.83 to US$1 so we are not there as yet but he would de­fend it at that lev­el.

"They have demon­strat­ed that they will de­fend it. At some stage there may be slip­page when they think that it is con­ve­nient to get to that lev­el. I do not see fur­ther slip­page in the short term. Would a de­val­u­a­tion help man­u­fac­tur­ing? The an­swer would be yes, but it would af­fect trade. One would go up and one would come down," Sab­ga said.