PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­port

An­gos­tu­ra is ex­pect­ing a good Christ­mas in terms of sales and an over­all re­bound in its per­for­mance for the fourth quar­ter of 2024.

In its unau­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ment for the nine months end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024, An­gos­tu­ra de­clared af­ter-tax prof­it of $94.35 mil­lion, which was 9.6 per cent less than the $104.42 mil­lion the rum and bit­ters com­pa­ny de­clared for the same pe­ri­od in 2023.

That drop in prof­it was par­tial­ly due to a $22.2 mil­lion de­crease in rev­enue to $697.94 mil­lion for the nine-month pe­ri­od. Ex­ec­u­tive man­ag­er for lo­cal sales, Nigel Balka­ran, said the com­pa­ny is see­ing signs of a turn­around.

"We've seen progress. We had our chal­lenges in the first nine months a year, but we have seen it turn around in the last cou­ple months as a re­sult of the sup­port we have been get­ting glob­al­ly, as well as lo­cal­ly," said Balka­ran at the lo­cal leg of the An­gos­tu­ra's Glob­al Cock­tail Chal­lenge held at Nube Nueve restau­rant in Val­park on Tues­day af­ter­noon.

He said while the com­pa­ny had seen growth in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, he was look­ing at growth in the lo­cal mar­ket.

"Def­i­nite­ly the in­ter­na­tion­al growth is con­tin­u­ing. We have seen that glob­al­ly. We have new mar­kets as well. So we've seen that growth. We are al­so look­ing at the lo­cal mar­ket. We are see­ing the lo­cal mar­ket grow­ing, the restau­rant, the bars are con­tin­u­ing to grow,' said Balka­ran who said events like the Glob­al Cock­tail chal­lenge was a means to grow T&T's brand.

"We build com­mu­ni­ties. This is what we are do­ing, An­gos­tu­ra, con­tin­ue to build com­mu­ni­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go and glob­al­ly. And what we've recog­nised at An­gos­tu­ra is that we have a rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and we have a job to do, as well as a pro­duc­er of Trinidad and To­ba­go is to con­tin­ue to build tal­ent. And what we're do­ing is build­ing tal­ent as well, " said Balka­ran, who con­firmed the fi­nals of the Glob­al Cock­tail Chal­lenge will be held in Trinidad next year.

Balka­ran al­so con­firmed that the com­pa­ny did have its chal­lenges in the for­eign ex­change mar­ket in terms of ob­tain­ing raw ma­te­ri­als for pro­duc­tion, but had been do­ing its part to earn for­eign ex­change through sales on the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.