Chair­man of Massy Hold­ings Lim­it­ed Robert Bermudez says the group con­tin­ues to achieve "healthy top-line growth" with a 14 per cent in­crease in rev­enue to $6.4 bil­lion for the six months end­ed March 31.

The group's lat­est fi­nan­cial state­ments, which have been post­ed on the T&T Stock Ex­change, shows that prof­it be­fore tax in­creased by $1 mil­lion to $411 mil­lion.

In his re­port to share­hold­ers Bermudez said a $1.2 bil­lion bond raised last year to re­fi­nance short-term debt and to fi­nance new projects and ac­qui­si­tions con­tributed to a $28 mil­lion in­crease in in­ter­est ex­pense to the group.

"The au­to­mo­tive and in­dus­tri­al equip­ment and re­tail units per­formed well. Both pro­duced dou­ble-dig­it prof­it be­fore tax growth for the pe­ri­od un­der re­view.

"En­er­gy and in­dus­tri­al gas­es, dis­tri­b­u­tion and lo­gis­tics units ex­pe­ri­enced de­clines aris­ing from re­duced ac­tiv­i­ty and prices in the en­er­gy sec­tor and a tem­po­rary set­back from the loss of a ma­jor dis­tri­b­u­tion line in Ja­maica," he said.

"Both ac­qui­si­tions in Colom­bia per­formed as, or bet­ter than ex­pect­ed and are pro­duc­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­vest­ment and growth."

Bermudez al­so re­port­ed that on April 10 Massy and its part­ners Mit­subishi Cor­po­ra­tion, Mit­subishi Gas Cor­po­ra­tion, Mit­subishi Heavy In­dus­tries and Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny signed a project agree­ment and sev­er­al sup­port­ing agree­ments with Na­tion­al En­er­gy, Gov­ern­ment and the Min­istry of En­er­gy to be­gin con­struc­tion of the methanol and DME plants.

He said in March San­dals Re­sorts Inc pur­chased the Al­mond Beach Vil­lage prop­er­ty from Bar­ba­dos Tourism In­vest­ment Inc and an out­stand­ing loan from Massy Bar­ba­dos to ABV In­vest­ments Inc (for­mer­ly known as Al­mond Re­sorts Inc) was re­paid in full.

"The group is tak­ing ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tions in recog­ni­tion of the chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties emerg­ing in the Trinidad and To­ba­go econ­o­my," he said.

"The group's fi­nan­cial strength will al­low it to con­tin­ue di­ver­si­fy­ing out­side of its tra­di­tion­al mar­kets and to cap­ture growth op­por­tu­ni­ties with­in its ex­ist­ing ter­ri­to­ries."