Pub­licly list­ed Agos­ti­ni's Ltd yes­ter­day an­nounced that its sub­sidiary, Caribbean Dis­tri­b­u­tion Part­ners Ltd, signed a share pur­chase agree­ment to ac­quire 100 per cent of Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion (Ja­maica), a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and con­sumer prod­ucts dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­ny in Ja­maica,

Agos­ti­ni's owns 50 per cent of Caribbean Dis­trib­u­tors Part­ners, in a joint ven­ture with Bar­ba­di­an com­pa­ny God­dard En­ter­pris­es.

Agos­ti­ni's pur­chased a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and per­son­al care dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­ny in Ja­maica called Health Brands, in a trans­ac­tion that closed on Au­gust 3, 2023.

In a no­tice yes­ter­day, Agos­ti­ni's said the ac­qui­si­tion of Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion (Ja­maica) "is strate­gic to the re­gion­al re­gion­al ex­pan­sion of our group's con­sumer prod­ucts and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal busi­ness­es."

In its 2024 an­nu­al re­port, Massy record­ed the group's third par­ty rev­enue from its in­te­grat­ed re­tail port­fo­lio at $9.895 bil­lion for the pe­ri­od end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024. Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, Ja­maica con­tributed 4 per cent of that port­fo­lio's rev­enue, which is about $396 mil­lion.

The trans­ac­tion will be com­plet­ed sub­ject to reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals and the com­ple­tion of the due dili­gence process, the group said in a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day.

In a sep­a­rate no­tice, Massy the sale of its Ja­maican sub­sidiary aligns with the group’s strat­e­gy to en­sure each of its busi­ness­es is best po­si­tioned to achieve its full po­ten­tial.

"We be­lieve that achiev­ing suc­cess in Ja­maica re­quires a ful­ly in­te­grat­ed ap­proach, with a com­bi­na­tion of dis­tri­b­u­tion and man­u­fac­tur­ing and/or re­tail.

"While we have es­tab­lished a strong dis­tri­b­u­tion pres­ence in the mar­ket, the ab­sence of at least one of the oth­er two com­po­nents, we be­lieve lim­its our abil­i­ty to de­vel­op the busi­ness to its fullest po­ten­tial.

"We ex­pect that Caribbean Dis­tri­b­u­tion Part­ners will build on the strong foun­da­tion es­tab­lished by the MD­JL team and that this tran­si­tion will bring even greater suc­cess to our val­ued em­ploy­ees, part­ners, and cus­tomers," the no­tice said.

Massy not­ed Ja­maica re­mains a key mar­ket for the group, adding the group is com­mit­ted to its growth and de­vel­op­ment.

"Our US$140.5 mil­lion IGL ac­qui­si­tion in 2023 is the Group’s largest to date and demon­strates our con­fi­dence in the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic and peo­ple po­ten­tial. We will con­tin­ue to ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pate and in­vest in Ja­maica, ei­ther through our busi­ness on the ground or through our lo­cal part­ner­ships, serv­ing com­mu­ni­ties across the is­land,' it added.

Massy Hold­ings Ltd is an in­vest­ment hold­ing com­pa­ny with three main in­vest­ment port­fo­lios: In­te­grat­ed Re­tail, Gas Prod­ucts and Mo­tors and Ma­chines as well as a Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices line of busi­ness.

The group em­ploys over 13,000 peo­ple in near­ly 60 com­pa­nies across the re­gion. Massy is a pub­licly held com­pa­ny which is list­ed on the T&T and Ja­maica Stock Ex­changes.

CDP is a group of con­sumer prod­ucts com­pa­nies with a strong pres­ence in the Caribbean.

Agos­ti­ni’s Ltd is a pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­ny list­ed on the T&T Stock Ex­change (TTSE) which op­er­ates across three main sec­tors: phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and health­care, con­sumer prod­ucts and en­er­gy and in­dus­tri­al. Agos­ti­ni's is chaired by lo­cal busi­ness­man, Chris­t­ian Mout­tet.