ANSA McAL has agreed to sell its 100 per cent share­hold­ing in Al­stons Ship­ping Ltd to pri­vate­ly held in­vest­ment com­pa­ny named Jem­cha Hold­ings Ltd (JHL), end­ing more than a cen­tu­ry of own­er­ship of the ship­ping busi­ness by the lo­cal con­glom­er­ate.

The trans­ac­tion is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in the fourth quar­ter of 2026, sub­ject to cus­tom­ary clos­ing con­di­tions. JHL will take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Al­stons Ship­ping’s op­er­a­tions and fu­ture di­rec­tion once the sale is com­plet­ed.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, ANSA McAL de­scribed the di­vest­ment as part of its on­go­ing 2X strat­e­gy, which fo­cus­es on stream­lin­ing its port­fo­lio and con­cen­trat­ing in­vest­ment on the Group’s core ar­eas of growth.

Al­stons Ship­ping has been part of ANSA McAL’s his­to­ry since its ear­li­est days, trac­ing its ori­gins to the ship­ping and trav­el de­part­ments of Al­stons Lim­it­ed.
Over more than 100 years, the com­pa­ny has es­tab­lished it­self in ship­ping agency, freight for­ward­ing and sup­ply chain ser­vices across the re­gion.

Un­der the agree­ment, JHL in­tends to build on the com­pa­ny’s ex­ist­ing op­er­a­tions, strength­en its ca­pa­bil­i­ties and sup­port its fu­ture growth.
The Al­stons Ship­ping name will con­tin­ue to be used dur­ing a tran­si­tion­al pe­ri­od fol­low­ing the change in own­er­ship.

ANSA McAL Group chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer An­dre Jef­fers de­scribed the sale as a move to sharp­en the con­glom­er­ate’s fo­cus on the sec­tors where it can gen­er­ate the great­est val­ue.

“This di­vest­ment re­flects the con­tin­ued dis­ci­pline of our 2X strat­e­gy, sharp­en­ing our fo­cus on the sec­tors where we can de­liv­er the great­est val­ue for our share­hold­ers, our peo­ple and the com­mu­ni­ties we serve. Al­stons Ship­ping has been part of the ANSA McAL sto­ry since our ear­li­est days, and we are proud of the role it has played in our jour­ney. We are con­fi­dent that un­der JHL’s own­er­ship, the busi­ness, its cus­tomers and its peo­ple are well po­si­tioned for con­tin­ued growth.”

He al­so ac­knowl­edged Al­stons Ship­ping’s long­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the Group, ex­press­ing con­fi­dence in its prospects un­der the new own­er­ship.

The sale rep­re­sents a change in own­er­ship for one of the re­gion’s es­tab­lished ship­ping and lo­gis­tics busi­ness­es, as ANSA McAL con­tin­ues to pur­sue its strat­e­gy of con­cen­trat­ing re­sources on its pri­or­i­ty growth sec­tors.

ANSA McAL has di­vest­ed a num­ber of com­pa­nies in the last two years in pur­suit of its 2X strat­e­gy. These in­clude:

• The group an­nounced the sale of Stan­dard Dis­trib­u­tors, to­geth­er with its whol­ly owned sub­sidiary Stan­dard Dis­tri­b­u­tion and Sales Bar­ba­dos, to Term Fi­nance Hold­ings Ltd in Jan­u­ary 2026;

• ANSA Tech­nolo­gies was of­fi­cial­ly di­vest­ed on April 2, 2025, to TOSL En­gi­neer­ing Ltd, which ac­quired 100 per cent share­hold­ing in the com­pa­ny;

• The sale of Bry­dens Re­tail Inc (op­er­at­ing as Bry­dens Sta­tionery) and Bry­dens Xpress (Of­fice Sup­plies) Inc in Bar­ba­dos was of­fi­cial­ly com­plet­ed on No­vem­ber 30, 2025. The com­pa­nies were sold to Green­bow Inc (a com­pa­ny led by Bar­ba­dos man­age­ment ex­ec­u­tives Gra­ham Greenidge and Sean Boland);

• The group al­so re­duced its as­so­ciate stake in Bar­ba­di­an com­pa­ny, Robert’s Man­u­fac­tur­ing from 49.5 per cent to 37.4 per cent through the dis­pos­al of a 24.4 per cent in through an Ini­tial Pub­lic Of­fer­ing with its joint ven­ture part­ner Proven Group.