In­creas­es in the Green Fund Levy and Busi­ness Levy, which con­tributed to an in­crease in the ef­fec­tive tax rate for Massy Hold­ings Lim­it­ed, were among the fac­tors blamed for a six per cent de­cline in the group's third quar­ter prof­it af­ter tax.

The group's un­con­sol­i­dat­ed fi­nan­cial state­ment for the quar­ter end­ed June 30 show that the prof­it was down from $416 mil­lion to $389 mil­lion, while earn­ings per share de­clined by sev­en per cent from $3.95 to $3.68.

Ac­cord­ing to chair­man Robert Bermudez, oth­er fac­tors that af­fect­ed the group's fi­nan­cial per­for­mance in­clud­ed a high­er ef­fec­tive tax rate from prof­its from over­seas and the in­abil­i­ty to use some loss­es for tax re­lief.

Massy's third-par­ty rev­enue through the end of the third quar­ter was $8.7 bil­lion com­pared with $8 bil­lion over the same pe­ri­od in 2016.

"The group's prof­it from its ter­ri­to­ries out­side of Trinidad and To­ba­go be­fore head of­fice charges in­creased by 15 per cent above 2015," Bermudez said.

"In Trinidad and To­ba­go, con­trac­tion in the en­er­gy sec­tor and the weak­en­ing of con­sumer de­mand led to a 25 per cent de­cline in prof­it from op­er­a­tions.

How­ev­er, 53 per cent of the prof­it be­fore tax de­cline from Trinidad and To­ba­go is at­trib­ut­able to a one-off ex­pense for a main­te­nance charge for the joint ven­ture air sep­a­ra­tion plant in Point Lisas and the start-up costs of the in­ter­net and TV busi­ness."

He said the group's growth ini­tia­tives are "pro­gress­ing well," with con­struc­tion of the Methanol and DME plant con­tin­u­ing on sched­ule.

"Pri­or to is­su­ing this state­ment, all agree­ments re­quired for draw-down on the loan from Japan Bank of In­ter­na­tion­al Co-op­er­a­tion were signed and spon­sors' eq­ui­ty in­jec­tions will be sup­ple­ment­ed by lenders funds go­ing for­ward," he said.

Bermudez said the group is man­ag­ing for­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty "through in­tense ef­forts and has been meet­ing all of its for­eign ex­change re­quire­ments through a com­bi­na­tion of strate­gies."

Group debt was $2.2 bil­lion com­pris­ing main­ly TT-dol­lar long-term debt of $1.8 bil­lion, while gear­ing im­proved from 33.3 per cent to 32.4 per cent and cash bal­ance peaked at $1.85 bil­lion.

"With healthy cash flow gen­er­a­tion from op­er­a­tions, the group is in an ex­cel­lent po­si­tion to con­tin­ue to fund its growth ini­tia­tives. How­ev­er, the group en­joyed a num­ber of one-off gains in the fourth quar­ter of 2015, which the group does not ex­pect in 2016," he said.