The ac­qui­si­tion of Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion (Ja­maica) by Agos­ti­ni Ltd, which is list­ed on the T&T Stock Ex­change, took a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward yes­ter­day, af­ter the com­pa­ny an­nounced it had re­ceived a state­ment of non-ob­jec­tion from the Fair Trade Com­mis­sion of Ja­maica for the deal.

In a news re­lease, Agos­ti­ni con­firmed that Aca­do Ja­maica Hold­ings, a sub­sidiary of its Aca­do joint ven­ture, had re­ceived the state­ment. Aca­do is owned 50 per cent by Agos­ti­ni Ltd and 50 per cent by God­dard En­ter­pris­es Ltd, based in Bar­ba­dos.

Agos­ti­ni said, "This pur­chase, which is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in the com­ing weeks, ex­pands the Agos­ti­ni Group’s pres­ence in Ja­maica by adding the con­sumer and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal di­vi­sions of Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion in­clud­ing Wind­sor Lab­o­ra­to­ries to its port­fo­lio. Aven­ta Ja­maica, ac­quired by the Agos­ti­ni Group in 2023 was the Group’s first op­er­at­ing en­ti­ty in the Ja­maican mar­ket."

Agos­ti­ni Group CEO Bar­ry Davis said, “Ja­maica con­tin­ues to be a key mar­ket for us and the clo­sure of this trans­ac­tion will be strate­gic to our long-term growth am­bi­tion. Our abil­i­ty to work with the FTC to reach an agree­ment un­der­scores our com­mit­ment to good gov­er­nance, and com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments wher­ev­er we op­er­ate.”

In a no­tice in Feb­ru­ary last year, Agos­ti­ni an­nounced its in­ten­tion to pur­chase 100 per cent of Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion (Ja­maica). The clo­sure of the trans­ac­tion was de­layed be­cause the Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion of Ja­maica had con­cerns about com­pe­ti­tion is­sues as a re­sult of the ac­qui­si­tion.