Com­mend­able.”

This is how chair­man Robert Bermudez has de­scribed the Massy Group’s per­for­mance for the sec­ond quar­ter of its fi­nan­cial year which end­ed Mach 31, 2020.

Bermudez said pan­dem­ic re­stric­tions re­main in place in all of the coun­tries in which the Group op­er­ates.

“The economies of coun­tries in which we op­er­ate con­tin­ue to strug­gle when com­pared to pri­or year and with­out the ex­tra con­sumer spend­ing which took place in March 2020 ahead of lock­downs and re­stric­tions, con­sumer de­mand was even low­er in the sec­ond quar­ter of fi­nan­cial year 2021 than fi­nan­cial year 2020,” Bermudez stat­ed.

“De­spite these chal­lenges, the Group’s Q2 Year To Date per­for­mance is com­mend­able,” he stat­ed.

Bermudez said while the Group’s Third Par­ty Rev­enue from Con­tin­u­ing Op­er­a­tions de­clined by one per cent from the same pe­ri­od in FY2020, Prof­it Af­ter Tax in­creased by 20 per cent from $263 mil­lion to $314 mil­lion.

The Group’s Earn­ings Per Share (EPS) im­proved by 24 per cent from $2.41 to $2.98 per share, he stat­ed.

“The Group’s strat­e­gy to man­age its op­er­a­tions as an In­vest­ment Hold­ing Com­pa­ny paid off in Q2 FY2021. The new ac­tive man­age­ment of the in­vest­ment port­fo­lios held through­out the Group un­der the lead­er­ship of the Group Cor­po­rate Trea­sury pro­duced sig­nif­i­cant gains which more than com­pen­sat­ed for weak­er per­for­mance by the busi­ness Port­fo­lios in Q2 FY2021,” he stat­ed.

He stat­ed that in­vest­ment gains con­tributed ap­prox­i­mate­ly $61 mil­lion more to Prof­it Be­fore Tax in Q2 FY2021 than Q2 FY2020, when Massy ex­pe­ri­enced in­vest­ment loss­es in its port­fo­lios, em­a­nat­ing from a de­cline in US Eq­ui­ties, pre­cip­i­tat­ed by pan­dem­ic un­cer­tain­ty.

Mo­tors and Ma­chines Third Par­ty Rev­enue grew by nine per cent on the strength of its per­for­mance in Colom­bia.

“How­ev­er, re­duced sales in Trinidad due to low stock lev­els con­tributed to a de­cline in its PBT by nine per cent ver­sus the pri­or year. Chal­lenges with low vol­umes of bulk LPG sales in Ja­maica aris­ing from lit­tle ac­tiv­i­ty at ho­tels and restau­rants and low vol­umes of Ni­tro­gen sales in Trinidad aris­ing from de­clin­ing ac­tiv­i­ty in the petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor of the econ­o­my con­strained the Gas Prod­ucts Port­fo­lio to a mod­est 4 per cent im­prove­ment in Rev­enue in Q2 YTD FY2021 ver­sus pri­or year,” he stat­ed.

“How­ev­er, Gas Prod­ucts Port­fo­lio PBT de­clined by 10 per cent as the mix of in­creased sales in CO2 from Trinidad came at much low­er mar­gins,” Bermudez stat­ed.

Bermudez stat­ed that with in­creased au­ton­o­my pro­vid­ed to the Port­fo­lios, the Group is “un­leash­ing the cre­ativ­i­ty and am­bi­tion of ex­ec­u­tives and pro­fes­sion­als in the Group to dri­ve the per­for­mance of their Port­fo­lios.”

“We are con­fi­dent in our Port­fo­lio teams to over­come this in­ter­rup­tion to their growth tra­jec­to­ry in the com­ing months. We there­fore be­lieve it is pru­dent to de­clare a Half Year div­i­dend of $0.55 which rep­re­sents a 10 per cent in­crease over pri­or year,” he stat­ed.

Bermudez stat­ed that con­sis­tent with the com­pa­ny’s on­go­ing sup­port for re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, the board made the de­ci­sion to ap­ply to cross-list the com­pa­ny’s shares on the Ja­maica Stock Ex­change.

“The Board con­sid­ered the mar­ket so­phis­ti­ca­tion and growth op­por­tu­ni­ties ev­i­dent in the Ja­maican se­cu­ri­ties mar­ket, which has be­come in­creas­ing­ly more dy­nam­ic over the past few years. The Board ex­pects this will pro­mote greater re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al in­ter­est in the Com­pa­ny’s shares, which will re­dound to the ben­e­fit of all share­hold­ers,” he stat­ed.