PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

ANSA McAL Group CEO An­tho­ny N Sab­ga III has giv­en as­sur­ances to share­hold­ers that div­i­dend pay­ments will be re­in­stat­ed at the end of the three-year mora­to­ri­um.

In 2025, the group had put pay­ments on pause a bid fund in­vest­ment in ex­pan­sion projects. At the com­pa­ny’s an­nu­al meet­ing at the Hy­att Re­gency on yes­ter­day, Sab­ga said the com­pa­ny’s fi­nan­cial re­ports had proven the group’s 2X strat­e­gy was reap­ing re­wards.

He said, “I know it’s a hot top­ic, and I’m sure a cou­ple of you want to ask that ques­tion, so I want to make sure that I take that ques­tion head on. The group re­mains faith­ful to its com­mit­ment to re­in­state div­i­dends,”

How­ev­er, the ANSA McAL CEO point­ed out the com­pa­ny’s share price had dipped since the de­ci­sion to pause pay­ments, de­spite the com­pa­ny’s per­for­mance trend­ing pos­i­tive­ly

“I want you to ob­serve what I’ve put up here. This shows a very in­ter­est­ing sto­ry that pri­or to the div­i­dend an­nounce­ment, our shares were trad­ing just about $57,” he said, “Since the div­i­dend an­nounce­ment, our earn­ings per share has been trend­ing and grow­ing quite sub­stan­tial­ly but look at what con­tin­ues to hap­pen to the share price. As I’ve been con­sis­tent­ly say­ing, the share price at this lev­el is a gift, and any­body who is so mind­ed to sell at this price, they may have a need to check them­selves, but this is def­i­nite­ly an op­por­tu­ni­ty here.”

He said in the long run share­hold­ers would be re­ward­ed when the pay­ments re­turn.

Sab­ga said, “We be­lieve that share­hold­er val­ue, while it’s a div­i­dend, div­i­dend yield re­mains some­thing that we as share­hold­ers are com­mit­ted to, and as the busi­ness are com­mit­ted to. But there’s gen­uine share­hold­er val­ue be­ing cre­at­ed here with this climb in earn­ings.”

The ANSA McAL CEO al­so ex­plained the com­pa­ny’s de­ci­sion to sell the long-stand­ing Stan­dard Dis­trib­u­tors brand was part of group’s plan to move away from re­tail busi­ness.

He said, “In or­der to stream­line and re­al­ly fo­cus man­age­ment time and fo­cus cap­i­tal, part of 2x does re­quire a bit of prun­ing, a bit of trim­ming, and in 2025 we need­ed ac­cu­mu­la­tion, and we suc­cess­ful­ly ex­e­cut­ed an ex­it of re­tail.

“So our group is sub­stan­tive­ly out of re­tail. We still op­er­ate some re­tail stores through our dis­tri­b­u­tion busi­ness, along with some of our du­ty-free stores, and I hope you all en­joy and shop when you trav­el at TWEE. But we’ve suc­cess­ful­ly ex­it­ed Stan­dard and set it up for a dif­fer­ent fu­ture, as well as Bry­den’s Re­tail.”

The ANSA McAL CEO al­so con­firmed that an Ini­tial Pub­lic Of­fer­ing for Bar­ba­di­an com­pa­ny, Roberts Man­u­fac­tur­ing Ltd was re­ceiv­ing pos­i­tive in­ter­est.

Last month, the group an­nounced it was seek­ing to raise US$15.31 mil­lion through the sale of shares in the Bar­ba­di­an com­pa­ny.