An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter eight decades of out­fit­ting Caribbean homes, Stan­dard Dis­trib­u­tors Ltd is tran­si­tion­ing from a re­tail house­hold name to a new chap­ter un­der Term Fi­nance (Trinidad & To­ba­go) Ltd.

The sale, which in­cludes Stan­dard’s Bar­ba­dos sub­sidiary, fol­lows what the par­ent com­pa­ny, ANSA McAL, de­scribed as a “care­ful re­view” of the brand’s long-term role with­in the group. The trans­ac­tion is ex­pect­ed to close by De­cem­ber 31, 2025, and will see Term Fi­nance re­shape Stan­dard in­to a mod­ern, cred­it-fo­cused busi­ness.

Sources told Guardian Me­dia that in Jan­u­ary there were 225 em­ploy­ees who worked at Stan­dard Dis­trib­u­tors and just last month there were over 90 em­ploy­ees, as many took up jobs else­where in the ANSA McAL group and oth­ers went on to oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties.

In con­firm­ing the sale, ANSA McAL said the move is con­sis­tent with its strat­e­gy to op­ti­mise its port­fo­lio, while it backs Term Fi­nance’s re­gion­al growth agen­da. The Group em­pha­sised that the de­ci­sion was not tak­en light­ly but aligns with its 2X Strate­gic Agen­da, which fo­cus­es on dou­bling scale and im­pact through tar­get­ed in­vest­ment in high-growth sec­tors.
“This sale clos­es an ex­tra­or­di­nary chap­ter in the Stan­dard sto­ry, but its im­pact built on qual­i­ty, ded­i­ca­tion, and con­nec­tion will en­dure,” said An­tho­ny N. Sab­ga III, Group CEO of ANSA McAL Lim­it­ed.

“As ANSA McAL con­tin­ues to stream­line its port­fo­lio, we re­main proud of Stan­dard’s con­tri­bu­tion to re­gion­al life and grate­ful to all who sup­port­ed the brand through­out its jour­ney.”
Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia ques­tions, ANSA McAL ex­plained that the di­vest­ment re­flects both in­ter­nal re­struc­tur­ing and evolv­ing mar­ket re­al­i­ties. De­mand for home fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances, the group not­ed, has mod­er­at­ed com­pared to pre­vi­ous years.

“This re­flects broad­ers shifts in house­hold spend­ing pat­terns re­gion­al­ly and glob­al­ly, as con­sumers man­age bud­gets more care­ful­ly and de­lay non-ur­gent re­place­ments,” said the group.

ANSA McAL said high­er in­fla­tion and house­hold ex­pens­es have prompt­ed many cus­tomers to pri­ori­tise es­sen­tial ex­pens­es and stretch the use of ex­ist­ing ap­pli­ances. This, com­bined with the grow­ing in­flu­ence of on­line shop­ping and dig­i­tal fi­nanc­ing, has re­shaped how con­sumers buy durable goods.

“More shop­pers are com­par­ing prices on­line or turn­ing to dig­i­tal fi­nanc­ing op­tions in­stead of tra­di­tion­al re­tail mod­els,” ANSA McAL stat­ed. “These trends mir­ror what we’ve seen glob­al­ly, where pur­chas­ing be­hav­iour has be­come more cau­tious and val­ue-dri­ven.”

In that con­text, Term Fi­nance’s ac­qui­si­tion of Stan­dard is seen as a nat­ur­al evo­lu­tion. The com­pa­ny plans to trans­form Stan­dard’s op­er­a­tions in­to a ded­i­cat­ed cred­it provider and e-com­merce plat­form, lever­ag­ing the brand’s 80-year lega­cy and ex­per­tise in hire-pur­chase ser­vices.

While Stan­dard’s re­tail stores of­fi­cial­ly closed on No­vem­ber 1, 2025, ex­ist­ing hire-pur­chase agree­ments and ser­vice com­mit­ments will con­tin­ue un­der the new own­er­ship. Cus­tomers with ac­tive prod­uct war­ranties or ser­vice claims will still have ac­cess to sup­port via Stan­dard’s web­site and of­fi­cial so­cial me­dia chan­nels.

Pro­tect­ing peo­ple and lega­cy

ANSA McAL has un­der­scored that em­ploy­ee wel­fare has been cen­tral through­out the tran­si­tion. While the com­pa­ny did not dis­close the num­ber of staff af­fect­ed, it said it made every ef­fort to treat team mem­bers “with fair­ness, dig­ni­ty, and care.”

Where pos­si­ble, some em­ploy­ees have been of­fered con­tin­ued em­ploy­ment with Stan­dard Dis­trib­u­tors un­der Term Fi­nance, while oth­ers have been re­as­signed with­in the wider ANSA McAL Group. For those leav­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion, the com­pa­ny pro­vid­ed en­hanced sep­a­ra­tion pack­ages, on­go­ing ac­cess to the Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (EAP) un­til the end of 2025, and fi­nan­cial coun­selling and job fairs in Trinidad and Bar­ba­dos to sup­port their next steps.
“All em­ploy­ees will con­tin­ue to have ac­cess to well­be­ing and fi­nan­cial-plan­ning sup­port,” the Group said, adding that the process was man­aged with trans­paren­cy and re­spect.

The sale, while not ex­pect­ed to be ma­te­r­i­al to the Group’s fi­nan­cial po­si­tion, forms part of ANSA McAL’s wider plan to strength­en fo­cus on sec­tors with the great­est po­ten­tial for re­gion­al growth.
“This de­ci­sion is about fo­cus, not with­draw­al,” the Group em­pha­sised. “We re­main deeply in­vest­ed in the re­tail and con­sumer sec­tors through mul­ti­ple sub­sidiaries.”.

On the CNC3 Face­book thread, one user said, “Smart move to bet­ter com­pete with Courts and Ready Fi­nance. These com­pa­nies make the bulk of their mon­ey from sell­ing loans and not fur­ni­ture ap­pli­ances.”

An­oth­er said, “I’ve been buy­ing my ap­pli­ances from Stan­dard for years, but glad it is chang­ing its mod­el to keep up with the fast-paced world.”

In a news re­lease, Term Fi­nance not­ed that it in­her­it­ed valu­able da­ta and un­der­writ­ing ex­per­tise through the ac­qui­si­tion, as it ac­knowl­edged the his­to­ry that Stan­dard Dis­trib­u­tors has in pro­vid­ing hire pur­chase fi­nanc­ing.

“We are piv­ot­ing the tra­di­tion­al hire purhase port­fo­lio to­ward a mod­ern cash-lend­ing mod­el, build­ing on Stan­dard’s lega­cy of trust, while in­tro­duc­ing more flex­i­ble, tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven cred­it so­lu­tions that meet to­day’s cred­it needs,” said Term Fi­nance.