The board of Massy Hold­ings Ltd an­nounced yes­ter­day the ap­point­ment of Ja­maican fi­nan­cial ex­ec­u­tive, Patrick Hyl­ton, as chair­man des­ig­nate of the group, ef­fec­tive June 1, 2026.

In a news re­lease on its web­site, Massy said Robert Ri­ley will con­tin­ue to serve as chair­man of the com­pa­ny and to lead the board in that ca­pac­i­ty, ex­er­cis­ing all pow­ers, du­ties, and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the chair­man’s of­fice.

Massy said Hyl­ton’s ap­point­ment forms part of the Board’s es­tab­lished suc­ces­sion plan­ning process and re­flects its com­mit­ment to strong gov­er­nance, lead­er­ship con­ti­nu­ity and the or­der­ly tran­si­tion of board lead­er­ship over the long term.

The group said the ap­point­ment comes ahead of Ri­ley’s 70th birth­day.

Massy said Hyl­ton is a long-serv­ing di­rec­tor of Massy Hold­ings Ltd brings more than three decades of dis­tin­guished lead­er­ship ex­pe­ri­ence in bank­ing, fi­nance and cor­po­rate gov­er­nance in the Caribbean.

He cur­rent­ly serves as pres­i­dent of the Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Ja­maica and pre­vi­ous­ly served as pres­i­dent and CEO of NCB Fi­nan­cial Group.

“Dur­ing his tenure, NCB Fi­nan­cial Group be­came the largest and most prof­itable fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion in Ja­maica and one of the most suc­cess­ful fi­nan­cial ser­vices groups in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean. He al­so pre­vi­ous­ly served as chair­man of Guardian Hold­ings Ltd,” Massy said.

Through­out his ca­reer, Mr Hyl­ton has been recog­nised for his strate­gic lead­er­ship, dis­ci­plined ex­e­cu­tion, com­mit­ment to in­no­va­tion and strong cus­tomer fo­cus. He al­so played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the re­struc­tur­ing of Ja­maica’s fi­nan­cial sec­tor dur­ing the 1990s, con­tribut­ing to the strength­en­ing and sta­bil­i­ty of the in­dus­try, Massy said.

“His ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence across fi­nan­cial ser­vices, in­sur­ance, pri­vate eq­ui­ty, re­tail and dis­tri­b­u­tion, to­geth­er with his deep un­der­stand­ing of re­gion­al busi­ness, has brought valu­able per­spec­tive and in­sight to the board. His con­tri­bu­tions and coun­sel have been great­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed by his fel­low di­rec­tors,” said the group.

The Massy board con­grat­u­lat­ed Hyl­ton on his ap­point­ment and said it looked for­ward to his con­tin­ued con­tri­bu­tion as chair­man des­ig­nate.

Loss on dis­pos­al

The Massy Group re­port­ed af­ter-tax prof­its of $257.03 mil­lion for the six months end­ed March 31, 2026. That was a de­cline of 31.6 per cent com­pared to the $376.21 mil­lion the group earned for the same pe­ri­od in 2025.

The main con­trib­u­tor to the re­duced prof­itabil­i­ty for the six-month pe­ri­od was due to the com­pa­ny recog­nis­ing a loss on dis­pos­al of $105.3 mil­lion for Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion (Ja­maica) Ltd.

“This loss re­flects the ac­count­ing im­pact of cu­mu­la­tive for­eign ex­change trans­la­tion loss­es crys­tallis­ing on di­vesti­ture rather than any un­der­ty­ing op­er­at­ing weak­ness, and the trans­ac­tion is ful­ly con­sis­tent with our con­tin­ued fo­cus on port­fo­lio dis­ci­pline and cap­i­tal al­lo­ca­tion in sup­port of sus­tain­able long-term val­ue,” Ri­ley said in his chair­man’s re­port.

“Work­ing cap­i­tal ab­sorbed cash dur­ing the pe­ri­od, re­flect­ing move­ments in in­ven­to­ry, re­ceiv­ables and payables. The board sup­ports man­age­ment’s in­ten­si­fied fo­cus on im­prov­ing cash con­ver­sion and re­in­forc­ing work­ing cap­i­tal dis­ci­pline through the sec­ond half of the year,” said Ri­ley.