San Juan, Trinidad-based AS Bry­den & Sons Hold­ings, which is ma­jor­i­ty owned by Ja­maica's Se­prod, yes­ter­day an­nounced it has ac­quired an ad­di­tion­al 30.4 per cent stake in Caribbean Pro­duc­ers Ja­maica (CPJ), a food and bev­er­age dis­trib­u­tor and man­u­fac­tur­er based in Mon­tego Bay.

On Ju­ly 9, 2024, AS Bry­den an­nounced that it had ac­quired a 44.8 per cent strate­gic stake in CPJ. The ac­qui­si­tion of the ad­di­tion­al shares by AS Bry­den takes it over takeover thresh­old of 50 per cent on the Ja­maica Stock Ex­change, where the T&T com­pa­ny is list­ed.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, AS Bry­den said it recog­nis­es that its in­creased own­er­ship in CPJ rep­re­sents more than 50 per cent of the is­sued share cap­i­tal of the com­pa­ny.

"Con­se­quent­ly, AS Bry­den will ex­ten a manda­to­ry of­fer to all re­main­ing CPJ share­hold­ers with­in 30 days, in ac­cor­dance with the Ja­maica Stock Ex­change gen­er­al prin­ci­ples re­lat­ing to takeovers and merg­ers.

"AS Bry­den's in­creased own­er­ship of CPJ is con­sis­tent with our ob­jec­tive of pur­chas­ing ad­di­tion­al shares we shared fol­low­ing the ac­qui­si­tion of our strate­gic stake in Ju­ly. We will soon ex­tend the of­fer to pur­chase shares from all CPJ share­hold­ers on equiv­a­lent terms sub­ject to CPJ re­main­ing a list­ed com­pa­ny," said Nicholas Scott, a di­rec­tor of AS Bry­den.

AS Bry­den's chair­man, PB Scott, said the com­pa­ny is com­mit­ted to be­com­ing the lead­ing dis­trib­u­tor of food and pre­mi­um bev­er­ages to ho­tels, re­sorts and restau­rants in Ja­maica and across the Caribbean.

"As a mem­ber of the Bry­den group, CPJ will now have ac­cess to greater re­sources and a re­gion­al plat­form. This is an ex­cit­ing time for both AS Bry­den and CPJ. I look for­ward to work­ing with the com­bined team to grow our busi­ness and de­liv­er val­ue to our cus­tomers, prin­ci­pals, em­ploy­ees and share­hold­ers."

In the May 4, 2022 news re­lease, Se­prod an­nounced the ac­qui­si­tion of AS Bry­den, which was then one of T&T's largest pri­vate­ly owned dis­trib­u­tors. At the time, Se­prod said the com­bi­na­tion of the two com­pa­nies would re­sult in a group with com­bined an­nu­al rev­enues pro­ject­ed to be in ex­cess of US$500 mil­lion ($3.37 bil­lion).

In ac­quir­ing AS Bry­den, Se­prod pur­chased a com­pa­ny that dis­trib­utes food, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, hard­ware, house­ware and in­dus­tri­al equip­ment.

AS Bry­den op­er­ates through three prin­ci­pal op­er­at­ing sub­sidiaries: AS Bry­den & Sons (Trinidad); Bry­den pi and FT Far­fan:

• AS Bry­den Trinidad dis­trib­utes food, hard­ware, house­wares and pre­mi­um bev­er­ages for in­ter­na­tion­al brands. That sub­sidiary al­so owns the Eve brand of prod­ucts;

• Bry­den pi dis­trib­utes health­care, per­son­al care and food and gro­cery prod­ucts for in­ter­na­tion­al brands. Bry­den pi al­so man­u­fac­tures a line of over-the-counter prod­ucts through its whol­ly-owned sub­sidiary, Genethics Ltd. Bry­den pi op­er­ates in Guyana through its sub­sidiary, BPI Guyana, as well as in Bar­ba­dos through its joint ven­ture, Arm­strong Health­care;

• FT Far­fan is an in­dus­tri­al sup­ply and ser­vice com­pa­ny that serves lead­ing in­ter­na­tion­al brands. FT Far­fan op­er­ates in Trinidad as well as in Guyana through its sub­sidiary, Ibis Con­struc­tion Equip­ment Sales & Rentals Inc. (ICON).

PB Scott is the ma­jor­i­ty share­hold­er of Se­prod.