In his last chair­man’s re­port for group, Massy Hold­ings chair­man Robert Bermudez re­port­ed the com­pa­ny’s prof­it af­ter tax from con­tin­u­ing op­er­a­tions in­creased by 18.66 per cent to $353.58 mil­lion (US$52.5 mil­lion) for the six months end­ed March 31, 2023, com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2022.

This rep­re­sent­ed a $55.62 mil­lion in­crease over its per­for­mance for the same pe­ri­od last year.

Massy’s rev­enue for the pe­ri­od from Oc­to­ber 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023 was $6.79 bil­lion, a 10.64 per cent over the $6.14 bil­lion the group gen­er­at­ed for the same pe­ri­od in 2022.

The Massy chair­man said strong prof­it be­fore tax in its in­te­grat­ed re­tail port­fo­lio of 20 per cent and in its mo­tors and ma­chines port­fo­lio of 11 per cent com­pen­sat­ed for the prof­it be­fore tax de­cline in the gas prod­ucts port­fo­lio of 11 per cent in the first half of its 2023 fi­nan­cial year.

For the six months end­ed March 31, 2023, in­te­grat­ed re­tail re­tail rep­re­sent­ed 65 per cent of Massy’s rev­enues and 59 per cent of its prof­it be­fore tax.

T&T rep­re­sent­ed 35 per cent of the group’s third-par­ty rev­enue and 39 per cent of its prof­it be­fore tax in the six months end­ed March 31, 2023.

Bermudez ex­plained the first half of the 2023 fi­nan­cial tear was a very im­por­tant pe­ri­od for the Massy Group strate­gi­cal­ly, fi­nan­cial­ly and pur­pose­ful­ly.

In his chair­man’s state­ment for the six-month pe­ri­od, he said: “In the first half of 2023, the group has ini­ti­at­ed the re­de­ploy­ment of cap­i­tal re­leased from di­vest­ments in trans­for­ma­tive ac­qui­si­tions in its core port­fo­lios. In De­cem­ber 2022, the Group ac­quired Rowe’s IGA su­per­mar­kets in Jack­sonville Flori­da for US$47 mil­lion.”

He ex­plained, “Rowe’s ac­qui­si­tion is a ma­jor step in achiev­ing the Group’s glob­al vi­sion and pro­vides an ex­cel­lent beach­front for fur­ther niche su­per­mar­ket ac­qui­si­tions in the South East Unit­ed States.”

Bermudez al­so point­ed out the group ac­quired Air Liq­uide’s op­er­a­tions in Trinidad for US$57 mil­lion in Jan­u­ary.

He said that ac­qu­si­tion con­sol­i­dat­ed “the group’s po­si­tion as the lead­ing in­dus­tri­al gas man­u­fac­tur­er and dis­trib­u­tor in the re­gion with ad­di­tion­al ex­port op­por­tu­ni­ties to be tapped.”

The Massy chair­man said the group is work­ing wih Ja­maica’s Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion to get ap­proval for the ac­qui­si­tion of IGL Ja­maica. He said the trans­ac­tion is ex­pect­ed to close in th third quar­ter of 2023.

Massy signed a share pur­chase agree­ment last De­cem­ber to ac­quire IGL Ja­maica for US$140 mil­lion.

Bermudez said the ac­qui­si­tion “will con­sol­i­date the group’s po­si­tion as the lead­ing in­dus­tri­al gas man­u­fac­tur­er and dis­trib­u­tor in the re­gion, with ad­di­tion­al ex­port op­por­tu­ni­ties to be tapped.”

The Massy Chair­man con­firmed he is re­tir­ing and is to be re­placed by for­mer bpTT re­gion­al pres­i­dent, Robert Ri­ley, lat­er this year.

“ I re­tire from the po­si­tion of chair­man with great pride in what the or­gan­i­sa­tion has achieved over the years and in its abil­i­ty to stay re­silient. I wish to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to ac­knowl­edge the great work of all Massy’s past em­ploy­ees and lead­ers and thank all our cur­rent staff, ex­ec­u­tives, cus­tomers and sup­pli­ers for their com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion.

“The group would not have sur­vived for 100 years and cer­tain­ly would not be in this po­si­tion of for­ti­tude for an­oth­er 100 years of pur­pose­ful growth with­out you all.”