JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

TCL brings in new managers, sees huge jump in profits

by

20150426

In a move that sig­nals the largest man­age­ment shake­up in more than two decades, Trinidad Ce­ment (TCL) yes­ter­day an­nounced that five ex­ec­u­tives em­ployed by Ce­mex–its largest share­hold­er–would as­sume key se­nior po­si­tions in run­ning the Clax­ton Bay-based com­pa­ny and its re­gion­al sub­sidiaries.

Ce­mex em­ploy­ees will as­sume the po­si­tions of group CEO, group op­er­a­tions man­ag­er, group strate­gic plan­ning man­ag­er, act­ing gen­er­al man­ag­er of Readymix and gen­er­al man­ag­er of Caribbean Ce­ment, TCL's Ja­maican sub­sidiary, TCL said in a no­tice pub­lished in yes­ter­day's Guardian.

The an­nounce­ment of the re­cruit­ment of five Mex­i­can ex­ec­u­tives came one day af­ter TCL en­tered in­to a tech­ni­cal ser­vices agree­ment with Ce­mex on Thurs­day.

Un­der the terms of the agree­ment, Ce­mex will pro­vide sup­port to TCL by mak­ing avail­able "suit­able, qual­i­fied and ex­pe­ri­enced ex­ec­u­tives to ful­fill the tasks re­quired from key ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions as re­quired."

The agree­ment al­so calls for Ce­mex to pro­vide train­ing ses­sions for TCL man­agers and em­ploy­ees, as re­quired and to pro­vide TCL with tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance to sup­port the op­er­a­tions of the TCL Group's trad­ing and ship­ping de­part­ments.

The fol­low­ing changes were an­nounced by TCL:

�2 Jose Luis Sei­jo will as­sume the po­si­tion of group CEO with ef­fect from May 4, 2015. Ale­jan­dro Ramirez Can­tu, who served as the act­ing group CEO from Au­gust 19, 2014 will re­sume his non-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor­ship po­si­tion on the board of di­rec­tors of the com­pa­ny;

�2 Ale­jan­dro Var�s will as­sume the po­si­tion of gen­er­al man­ag­er, Caribbean Ce­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd, with ef­fect from May 4, 2015. An­tho­ny Haynes, who served as gen­er­al man­ag­er of CC­CL for more than 13 years re­signs from the post ef­fec­tive April 30, 2015. He will con­tin­ue with the group as a con­sul­tant un­til Oc­to­ber;

�2 Miguel Estra­da will as­sume the po­si­tion of TCL group op­er­a­tions man­ag­er ef­fec­tive May 4, 2015. This post re­places the pre­vi­ous po­si­tion of group man­u­fac­tur­ing and de­vel­op­ment man­ag­er;

�2 Ri­car­do Gar­cia will as­sume the new po­si­tion of TCL group strate­gic plan­ning man­ag­er ef­fec­tive May 4, 2015.

�2 An­dres Pe�a, who served as group strat­e­gy im­ple­men­ta­tion man­ag­er from No­vem­ber 1, 2013, will be ap­point­ed to act as gen­er­al man­ag­er of Readymix (West In­dies) Ltd (RML) ef­fec­tive May 4, 2015. Man­an Deo, who has served as gen­er­al man­ag­er of RML since 2005 is cur­rent­ly on pre-re­tire­ment leave, and will re­tire of­fi­cial­ly on Oc­to­ber 16, 2015, af­ter which Pe�a will as­sume the sub­stan­tive po­si­tion of gen­er­al man­ag­er of RML.

In a state­ment, TCL's board of di­rec­tors, which is chaired by lo­cal busi­ness ex­ec­u­tive Wil­fred Es­pinet, said: "It wish­es to re­it­er­ate its com­mit­ment to re­turn­ing the com­pa­ny to sta­ble val­ue cre­ation and would con­tin­ue to up­date stake­hold­ers on de­vel­op­ments in this re­gard."

Asked yes­ter­day to com­ment on whether TCL was out­sourc­ing its man­age­ment to Ce­mex, a Mex­i­can con­struc­tion prod­ucts gi­ant, Es­pinet said: "I have nev­er been one to com­plain about for­eign­ers. We had a Cana­di­an com­mis­sion­er of po­lice and no one com­plained. Machel Mon­tano has dancers from Mi­a­mi.

"We are sim­ply try­ing to get the best peo­ple to run TCL in the con­text of some lo­cal man­agers leav­ing the com­pa­ny for dif­fer­ent rea­sons.

"The new board of TCL is sim­ply try­ing to do what it feels is in the best in­ter­est of its share­hold­ers, em­ploy­ees, cred­i­tors and the pur­chasers of ce­ment and con­crete."

Ques­tioned on if there were any lo­cals who could have tak­en up the jobs that have gone to Mex­i­cans, Es­pinet said: "We do not have the skills to op­er­ate and man­age con­crete plants sit­ting around."

He al­so not­ed that about 47 per cent of TCL's shares are owned by for­eign­ers.

The an­nounce­ment of the man­age­ment changes at TCL comes 24 days af­ter the com­pa­ny dis­closed the re­sults of last month's suc­cess­ful rights is­sue, which raised US$57.13 mil­lion (TT$361.5 mil­lion) in new cap­i­tal for TCL by the is­sue of 124,882,568 new shares.

Sier­ra Trad­ing, the Ce­mex sub­sidiary that holds its shares in TCL, sub­scribed for 78.5 per cent of the new shares that were of­fered in the rights is­sue, con­tribut­ing US$44.85 mil­lion to TCL's re­cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion.

As a re­sult of the rights is­sue, the Ce­mex stake in TCL went from 20 per cent to 39.5 per cent, ce­ment­ing its role as TCL's largest share­hold­er.

In an April 2 no­tice to share­hold­ers, TCL stat­ed that it in­tends to use the pro­ceeds of the rights is­sue in the fol­low­ing pri­or­i­ty:

�2 Re­struc­tur­ing and trans­ac­tion ex­pens­es;

�2 Re­plen­ish­ment of work­ing cap­i­tal (in­clud­ing the set­tle­ment of long-out­stand­ing payable bal­ances that in­clude amounts due to em­ploy­ees);

�2 Debt ser­vice; and

�2 In­vest­ment in cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture.

In ad­di­tion, TCL's cred­i­tors made rais­ing eq­ui­ty cap­i­tal of at least US$50 mil­lion a con­di­tion prece­dent of debt re­struc­tur­ing agree­ments, which came in­to ef­fect on March 30, 2015.

The main el­e­ments of the debt re­struc­tur­ing agree­ments in­clude that the in­ter­est rate on TCL's debt re­vert­ed to De­cem­ber 2010 lev­els (about 8 per cent) and the com­pa­ny ex­pe­ri­enced for­give­ness on its de­fault mora­to­ri­um in­ter­est (which was set at about 12 per cent).

TCL al­so has the abil­i­ty to pre­pay orig­i­nal­ly se­cured and un­se­cured debt on a dis­count­ed ba­sis with­in 90 days of the ef­fec­tive­ness of the re­struc­tur­ing.

In an in­ter­view pub­lished in the April 2 edi­tion of the Busi­ness Guardian, TCL chair­man Es­pinet said: "One of the spe­cif­ic ben­e­fits of the rights is­sue is that it will re­sult in an im­me­di­ate re­duc­tion in TCL's in­ter­est charge...As a re­sult of us get­ting in this new cap­i­tal from the rights is­sue, our cred­i­tors are go­ing to re­verse the two per cent penal­ty and have agreed to low­er the av­er­age in­ter­est from 10 per cent to eight per cent from Jan­u­ary 1, 2015."

TCL prof­it jumps 259%

The ce­ment com­pa­ny's af­ter-tax prof­it for the first quar­ter of 2015 sky­rock­et­ed to $46.6 mil­lion com­pared with $12.96 mil­lion in the first quar­ter of 2014.

This sharp in­crease in TCL's prof­itabil­i­ty came about even though there was a mar­gin­al in­crease in the com­pa­ny's rev­enues, which to­taled $514.85 mil­lion for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to March 2015, com­pared with $513.56 mil­lion for the same pe­ri­od in 2014.

The com­pa­ny's earn­ings be­fore in­ter­est, tax, de­pre­ci­a­tion, im­pair­ment, loss on dis­pos­al of prop­er­ty, plant and equip­ment and re­struc­tur­ing ex­pens­es jumped by 38 per cent from $100.43 mil­lion in 2014 to $138.21 mil­lion in 2015.

The di­rec­tors' com­ments at­trib­uted this im­prove­ment in earn­ings to high­er sales and pro­duc­tion vol­umes and price in­creas­es im­ple­ment­ed in 2014 at TCL and low­er fu­el and elec­tric­i­ty costs at Caribbean Ce­ment.

TCL's op­er­at­ing prof­it in­creased from $68.41 mil­lion in 2014 to $110.56 mil­lion in 2015, while its prof­it be­fore tax went from $17.63 mil­lion for the first quar­ter of 2014 to $56.99 mil­lion for the same pe­ri­od in 2015.

At the end of the first quar­ter, TCL's cash bal­ance amount­ed to $548.3 mil­lion, large­ly as a re­sult of the rights is­sue pro­ceeds of $361.5 mil­lion. As a con­se­quence of the re­struc­tured debt agree­ment, TCL's loans have been re-clas­si­fied from short term to long-term, which has im­proved the com­pa­ny's the work­ing cap­i­tal from a deficit of $1.5 bil­lion at De­cem­ber 31, 2014 to a sur­plus of $600 mil­lion at March 31st 2015.

With re­gard to its bal­ance sheet, TCL's net as­sets in­creased from $245.5 mil­lion at the end of 2014 to $648.9 mil­lion at the end of March, 2015.

In com­ments on the com­pa­ny's first quar­ter unau­dit­ed re­sults, Es­pinet and TCL's act­ing group CEO, Ale­jan­dro Ramirez, de­scribed the re­sults as "a mile­stone in the his­to­ry of the TCL group."

Speak­ing yes­ter­day on TCL's first quar­ter re­sult Es­pinet not­ed that the re­al ben­e­fits from the com­pa­ny's in­tro­duc­tion of op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cies had not yet flowed through to its bot­tom line.

He not­ed, as well, that TCL will get achieve sig­nif­i­cant sav­ings, of as much as US$30 mil­lion, if it is able to pay off its ex­ist­ing cred­i­tors, who are owed about US$280 mil­lion by the end of June.

The com­pa­ny is plan­ning to bor­row the US$280 mil­lion from new cred­i­tors for a pe­ri­od of up to 18 months, said Es­pinet, in the April 2 in­ter­view.

This short-term loan would be rolled over in­to a longer-term note, he said.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored

Today's
Guardian

Publications

A model in a costume from The Lost Tribe’s 2026 presentation Island Circus

A model in a costume from The Lost Tribe’s 2026 presentation Island Circus

KERWIN PIERRE

A model in a costume from The Lost Tribe’s 2026 presentation Island Circus

A model in a costume from The Lost Tribe’s 2026 presentation Island Circus

KERWIN PIERRE

Ringmasters of the Road: Crowds flock to Tribe’s circus-themed band launch

9 hours ago
Students, principal and staff of St David’s RC Primary, along with the UWTT and Scotiabank Foundation teams at the handover of steelpans at the school.

Students, principal and staff of St David’s RC Primary, along with the UWTT and Scotiabank Foundation teams at the handover of steelpans at the school.

Students, principal and staff of St David’s RC Primary, along with the UWTT and Scotiabank Foundation teams at the handover of steelpans at the school.

Students, principal and staff of St David’s RC Primary, along with the UWTT and Scotiabank Foundation teams at the handover of steelpans at the school.

Scotiabank Foundation, United Way donate steelpans

9 hours ago
The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

Jaggasar returns as National Parang president

Yesterday
Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Jamaican Maroons celebrate, question land rights

Yesterday