Ger­vase Warn­er, Pres­i­dent and CEO of the Massy Group, said the con­glom­er­ate has em­barked on a com­bi­na­tion of de­fen­sive and of­fen­sive strate­gies to grow in the cur­rent chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion.

In his con­tri­bu­tion to the group's an­nu­al re­port, which was post­ed on the T&T Stock Ex­change yes­ter­day, Warn­er ac­knowl­edged that re­cent de­vel­op­ments, such as the fall in oil prices, eco­nom­ic in­sta­bil­i­ty in Eu­rope and un­rest caused by rad­i­cal, fun­da­men­tal­ist groups in some parts of the world, con­tributed to chal­leng­ing times for busi­ness­es.

He main­tained, how­ev­er, that in these times "com­pa­nies have to work even hard­er and be even more cre­ative to rise to the chal­lenge to grow."

He said: "Massy in fact was birthed in such an en­vi­ron­ment. In the glob­al de­pres­sion of the 1930s most im­port/ex­port and dis­tri­b­u­tion busi­ness­es were in dif­fi­cul­ty. It was as a re­sult of this re­ces­sion­ary pres­sure that Har­ry Neal and Charles Massy de­cid­ed to merge their com­pa­nies–an en­gi­neer­ing com­pa­ny and a mo­tor com­pa­ny to form Neal & Massy En­gi­neer­ing in 1932.

"As it was then, our com­mit­ment over the past year was about be­ing smarter about how we op­er­ate, find­ing and build­ing strate­gic part­ner­ships and seek­ing out op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth be­cause we will not al­low pes­simism to re-de­fine our pur­pose," he said.

Warn­er said Massy's cost re­duc­tion strat­e­gy is aimed at op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy rather than cost cut­ting.

"We are pur­su­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties by find­ing new mar­ket seg­ments, ex­plor­ing strate­gic in­vest­ments with long term pay­offs and ac­quir­ing tal­ent and as­sets of busi­ness­es which be­come avail­able dur­ing a down­turn. In some in­stances we have had to make some dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions, such as di­vest­ing busi­ness­es which were not a strate­gic fit for the or­gan­i­sa­tion," he said

His com­ments came against the back­drop of the re­lease of the Massy's Group au­dit­ed re­sults for the 2015 fi­nan­cial year which show a 10.4 per cent in­crease in the group's prof­it be­fore tax to $919 mil­lion.

Con­tribut­ing to these im­pres­sive re­sults were Massy's Au­to­mo­tive & In­dus­tri­al Equip­ment Busi­ness Unit with a 13 per cent in­crease over 2014, as well as the En­er­gy & In­dus­tri­al Gas­es Busi­ness Unit and the In­te­grat­ed Re­tail Busi­ness Unit, both show­ing a six per cent in­crease over 2014.

Warn­er said Massy's ac­qui­si­tion strat­e­gy con­tributed $1 bil­lion to a $1.2 bil­lion in­crease in group rev­enue, with the re­cent ac­qui­si­tions of the ma­jor­i­ty stake in Con­sol­i­dat­ed Foods Lim­it­ed (St. Lu­cia), Massy En­er­gy Colom­bia and Massy De­li­ma Grupo Au­to­motriz S.A.S. (Colom­bia) ac­count­ing for $80 mil­lion of the prof­it be­fore tax in 2015 com­pared to $38 mil­lion in 2014.

He said con­struc­tion of the Methanol and DME plant at Union In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, La Brea, which the group is pur­su­ing along with part­ners Mit­subishi Cor­po­ra­tion and Mit­subishi Gas Cor­po­ra­tion, is an im­por­tant part of a di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion strat­e­gy that will pro­vide much need­ed for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment to T&T and for­eign ex­change earn­ings for the group.