Since De­cem­ber 2023, ten Massy Hold­ings se­nior ex­ec­u­tives and in­de­pen­dent non-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tors have de­part­ed from the com­pa­ny, ac­cord­ing to the ma­te­r­i­al dis­clo­sure no­tices post­ed by the com­pa­ny, one of the largest, old­est and most prof­itable and ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly di­verse groups in the Cari­com re­gion. (See side­bar)

In the last six weeks, four of the top ex­ec­u­tive man­agers at Massy Mo­tors and Ma­chines, re­signed from the com­pa­ny.

And in the last 18 months, sources told the Busi­ness Guardian, 26 em­ploy­ees of Massy’s fi­nan­cial ser­vices arm, which em­ploys just over 50 peo­ple, left the com­pa­ny, some af­ter work­ing there for less than one month.

Checks by this pub­li­ca­tion have re­vealed that a for­mer em­ploy­ee of the group has ini­ti­at­ed le­gal ac­tion in T&T’s High Court for wrong­ful dis­missal.

But there are oth­ers who have left the com­pa­ny in the last 18 months who are afraid to take le­gal ac­tion chal­leng­ing their ter­mi­na­tions.

One for­mer Massy em­ploy­ee who spoke, on the strict con­di­tion of ab­solute con­fi­den­tial­i­ty be­cause of a fear of vic­tim­i­sa­tion, said the hes­i­ta­tion over tak­ing Massy to court for wrong­ful dis­missal was be­cause of the length of time such ac­tion could take, the cost of lit­i­ga­tion as well as the fact that at least six of those who have left the group signed a doc­u­ment com­mit­ting not to con­test their de­par­tures.

At least six em­ploy­ees have had to sign what is be­ing called a two-let­ter sep­a­ra­tion pack­age. One em­ploy­ee re­lat­ed their ex­pe­ri­ence:

• The em­ploy­ee was called in­to a meet­ing and pre­sent­ed with a let­ter of ter­mi­na­tion, signed by the man­ag­er of the di­vi­sion or port­fo­lio;

• The em­ploy­ee was told in the ter­mi­na­tion let­ter of the loss of con­fi­dence by the board or man­age­ment in the em­ploy­ee’s abil­i­ty to con­tin­ue to per­form their du­ties;

• The em­ploy­ee is then giv­en the op­tion of re­tir­ing from the com­pa­ny. The re­tire­ment op­tion forms part of an agree­ment of re­lease and dis­charge, in which the em­ploy­ee agrees to re­lease and dis­charge Massy from any lit­i­ga­tion or claim made by the em­ploy­ee and not to ever dis­close the terms of the agree­ment;

• Guardian Me­dia was shown a copy of the non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment by an em­ploy­ee, who said that they were pres­sured to sign the doc­u­ment im­me­di­ate­ly with­out hav­ing the ben­e­fit of le­gal or in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions ad­vice; and

• Some of the em­ploy­ees Guardian Me­dia spoke with say that af­ter they were sep­a­rat­ed from the group, their at­tempts to gain em­ploy­ment else­where were be­ing scup­pered when prospec­tive em­ploy­ers called Massy for ref­er­ence checks and were told on­ly neg­a­tive things about the em­ploy­ee.

Last week, this pub­li­ca­tion sought a re­sponse from Massy deputy CEO and pres­i­dent, James McLetchie, to the is­sues raised by for­mer and cur­rent em­ploy­ees of the group.

Those is­sues in­clud­ed:

1) That em­ploy­ees of the group have re­ceived the two-let­ter sep­a­ra­tion pack­age, to re­sign with a pack­age, or to be ter­mi­nat­ed;

2) That the em­ploy­ees of Massy Mo­tors and Ma­chines are in a state of pan­ic over the de­par­ture of four ex­ec­u­tives in the last six weeks;

3) That there does not seem to have been any suc­ces­sion plan­ning at Mo­tors and Ma­chines;

4) That giv­en McLetchie’s oth­er du­ties at Massy, he is not like­ly to pro­vide ef­fec­tive over­sight of the di­vi­sion for any­thing longer than the im­me­di­ate short term; and

5) That the de­par­ture of the four ex­ec­u­tives from Mo­tors and Ma­chines is re­lat­ed to is­sues sur­round­ing ac­cess to forex and the need to right­size the di­vi­sion.

In his re­sponse, McLetchie said, “This is all un­for­tu­nate and in­ac­cu­rate spec­u­la­tion. As a mat­ter of pol­i­cy, we don’t dis­cuss per­son­nel mat­ters pub­licly, and there­fore I will not com­ment ex­cept to say that its lead­er­ship (Massy Mo­tors and Ma­chines) will be in good hands with a fo­cus on its peo­ple and cus­tomers..

On Tues­day, Massy an­nounced that Ryan Latchu, cur­rent­ly the pres­i­dent of Toy­ota T&T, was set to re­place Marc Ros­tant (see side­bar) as the ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent and port­fo­lio CEO of Massy Mo­tors and Ma­chines.

Asked to com­ment on the is­sue of the two-let­ter sep­a­ra­tions, in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions ex­pert Courte­nay Mc­Nish said:

“The two-let­ter ap­proach used by a com­pa­ny to sep­a­rate an ex­ec­u­tive may not be fair, but it is not il­le­gal.

“There is no law stop­ping a com­pa­ny from end­ing the ser­vice of a se­nior em­ploy­ee, as long as that sep­a­ra­tion con­forms with the ex­ec­u­tive’s con­tract of em­ploy­ment and the com­pa­ny can com­mu­ni­cate a ra­tio­nale, or cause, why it wants to sep­a­rate an em­ploy­ee.

“That is be­cause an ex­ec­u­tive of a com­pa­ny does not have the pro­tec­tion of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act that a work­er would have.

“On the oth­er hand, all em­ploy­ees of com­pa­nies, ex­ec­u­tives or work­ers, have the pro­tec­tion of the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice.

“That means ex­ec­u­tives have the right to be in­formed of the rea­sons the com­pa­ny wants to sep­a­rate them, and they have the right to be heard in their own de­fence.

“The ju­rispru­dence on the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice and in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions mat­ters is clear, up to and in­clud­ing the lo­cal Court of Ap­peal’s judg­ment, de­liv­ered by Nolan Bereaux, in Feb­ru­ary 2025 in the mat­ter of Jwala Ram­bar­ran v the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

“So the fair ap­proach in sep­a­rat­ing an ex­ec­u­tive would be for the com­pa­ny to bring its con­cerns about the ex­ec­u­tive’s per­for­mance to their at­ten­tion and al­low the ex­ec­u­tive the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond.

“All sep­a­ra­tions must have a ra­tio­nale. In oth­er words, a com­pa­ny can­not just de­cide that they do not like an ex­ec­u­tive and they want to dis­miss them.

On the is­sue of any ap­proach aimed at the ter­mi­na­tion of the em­ploy­ment of an ex­ec­u­tive, Mc­Nish said, “A com­pa­ny is not oblig­ed to take rep­re­sen­ta­tion from an at­tor­ney-at-law while the ex­ec­u­tive con­tin­ues to be em­ployed. How­ev­er, nat­ur­al jus­tice would dic­tate that an ex­ec­u­tive, faced with the threat of forced re­tire­ment, should be giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to seek ad­vice which would en­able them to make the best de­ci­sion with re­spect to the op­tion of res­ig­na­tion or dis­missal.”

For the six months end­ed March 31, 2025, Massy’s Mo­tors and Ma­chines Port­fo­lio gen­er­at­ed $1.74 bil­lion in third-par­ty rev­enue, which was 22 per cent of rev­enue of $7.92 bil­lion the group record­ed for the pe­ri­od. Mo­tors and Ma­chines was Massy’s sec­ond largest third-par­ty rev­enue gen­er­a­tor, fol­low­ing In­te­grat­ed Re­tail Port­fo­lio, which record­ed $5.04 bil­lion, 63.6 per cent of the to­tal.

For the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025, Massy’s third-par­ty rev­enue in­creased by 3.9 per cent to $7.92 bil­lion, and its af­ter-tax prof­it was up by 21.6 per cent to $376.1 mil­lion.

Ten Massy de­ci­sion mak­ers who left the com­pa­ny since De­cem­ber 2023

• Marc Ros­tant re­signed as group ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor and port­fo­lio CEO of Massy’s Mo­tors and Ma­chines Port­fo­lio on Ju­ly 8, ef­fec­tive Ju­ly 8;

• So­raya Khan re­signed as an in­de­pen­dent non-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, ef­fec­tive March 7, 2025;

• Three in­de­pen­dent, non-ex­ec­u­tive Massy Hold­ings di­rec­tors—Pe­ter Jee­wan, Suresh Ma­haraj and Bruce Melizan— re­tired from the board on ro­ta­tion, ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 15, 2015, fol­low­ing the group’s de­ci­sion to re­duce the size of its di­rec­tor­ship. A fourth Massy Hold­ings di­rec­tor, Vaughn Mar­tin, the group’s ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor in charge of the Gas Prod­ucts Port­fo­lio, al­so re­tired from the hold­ing com­pa­ny board in Jan­u­ary;

• Julie Avey, group ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent, re­tired from the com­pa­ny ef­fec­tive May 31, 2024, ac­cord­ing to a May 21, 2024 no­tice;

• Al­ber­to Ro­zo re­signed as se­nior vice-pres­i­dent strat­e­gy and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment of the Gas Prod­ucts Port­fo­lio, ef­fec­tive June 30, 2024;

• David O’Bri­an an­nounced on March 8, 2024 that it was his in­ten­tion to re­sign from the com­pa­ny ef­fec­tive June 8;

• Ger­vase Warn­er, Massy pres­i­dent and group CEO, an­nounced on Feb­ru­ary 7, 2024 that he was pro­ceed­ing with ear­ly re­tire­ment from the com­pa­ny and re­tir­ing from its board ef­fec­tive April 6, 2024; and

• Angélique Parisot-Pot­ter, ex­ec­u­tive vice-pres­i­dent busi­ness in­tegri­ty and group gen­er­al coun­sel, re­signed from the Com­pa­ny ef­fec­tive De­cem­ber 27, 2023.