GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Pub­licly list­ed lo­cal con­glom­er­ate, Agos­ti­ni’s Ltd, has now ac­quired three phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and whole­sale traders: Aven­ta NV, Aven­ta Aru­ba NV and Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Ware­hous­ing Inc, which are lo­cat­ed in the Dutch Caribbean.

The an­nounce­ment was made on the T&T Stock Ex­change in a no­tice of ma­te­r­i­al change yes­ter­day.

The no­tice stat­ed, "Agos­ti­ni’s Ltd wish­es to ad­vise that all con­di­tions prece­dent for the ac­qui­si­tions of Aven­ta NV (Cu­raçao), Aven­ta Aru­ba NV and Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Ware­hous­ing In­cor­po­rat­ed (Cu­raçao), three phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and per­son­al care dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­nies, have now been met and these ac­qui­si­tions were com­plet­ed on June 28, 2024."

Aven­ta NV is a pro­fes­sion­al ware­hous­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion part­ner with of­fices in Cu­ra­cao and Aru­ba.

The ac­qui­si­tions in the Dutch Caribbean are the sixth to be made by Agos­ti­ni’s in a lit­tle over three years.

In 2023, com­pa­ny signed a sale and pur­chase agree­ment with the share­hold­ers of Health Brands Ltd, a Ja­maican phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and per­son­al care dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­ny, to ac­quire 100 per cent of the is­sued and out­stand­ing shares of that com­pa­ny.

The ac­qui­si­tion of the Ja­maican com­pa­ny was, at the time, the fifth ac­qui­si­tion in which Agos­ti­ni's was in­volved, in about two years.

On May 5, 2023, Agos­ti­ni’s an­nounced that its sub­sidiary, Caribbean Dis­tri­b­u­tion Part­ners Ltd, pur­chased 80 per cent of the is­sued and out­stand­ing shares of Chi­nook Trad­ing Cana­da Ltd, a Mon­tre­al, Cana­da-based con­sumer prod­uct trad­ing firm that op­er­ates pri­mar­i­ly in the Caribbean.

Caribbean Dis­trib­u­tors Part­ners is a whole­sale dis­trib­u­tor of food, bev­er­ages and gro­cery prod­ucts that is a 50/50 joint ven­ture be­tween Agos­ti­ni’s and God­dard En­ter­pris­es Ltd of Bar­ba­dos.

The joint ven­ture com­pa­ny’s lo­cal sub­sidiary (CDP Trinidad Ltd) con­sists of two di­vi­sions in­volved in FM­CG and food man­u­fac­tur­ing seg­ments, Hand Arnold and Vem­co re­spec­tive­ly.

The T&T com­pa­ny com­plet­ed the ac­qui­si­tion of Collins Ltd and Carlisle Lab­o­ra­to­ries Ltd of Bar­ba­dos, which op­er­ate in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and health­care seg­ment, in De­cem­ber 2022.

On Oc­to­ber 1, 2021, through its sub­sidiary, en­er­gy equip­ment and ser­vices provider Rosco Petroa­vance, Agos­ti­ni’s ac­quired 100 per cent of Process Com­po­nents Ltd, a com­pa­ny that was owned by di­rec­tors of Laugh­lin and De­Gannes.

Rosco Petroa­vance and Process Com­po­nents are pri­mar­i­ly in­volved in the sale and ser­vice of oil­field and man­u­fac­tur­ing equip­ment.

Agos­ti­ni’s closed the ac­qui­si­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­trib­u­tor Os­car Fran­cois and its re­lat­ed com­pa­ny man­u­fac­tur­er, In­ter­sol, through its Smith Robert­son sub­sidiary on April 30, 2021.

Chris­t­ian Mout­tet is the chair­man of Agos­ti­ni’s.