Massy Hold­ings Ltd’s planned sale of its Ja­maican dis­tri­b­u­tion busi­ness to Aca­do Ltd, a sub­sidiary of T&T’s Agos­ti­ni, has been frozen pend­ing the sale of an in­sulin brand to a third par­ty dis­trib­u­tor.

The Ja­maican Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion (FTC) in­di­cat­ed that the is­suance of a non-ob­jec­tion let­ter to the trans­ac­tion is con­tin­gent on the sale of an in­sulin brand to an­oth­er par­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the FTC, the three avail­able in­sulin brands are dis­trib­uted be­tween Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion Ja­maica Ltd and Aven­ta Ja­maica, Agos­ti­ni’s phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion busi­ness.

A re­view by the Busi­ness Guardian of Ja­maica’s Na­tion­al Health Fund re­vealed that there are more than 30 sub­sidised in­sulin prod­ucts for di­a­bet­ic users. The Hu­mulin brand, a prod­uct man­u­fac­tured by Eli Lil­ly and Com­pa­ny, is dis­trib­uted by Aven­ta Ja­maica while Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion Ja­maica dis­trib­utes Apidra, Lan­tus and No­volin which are man­u­fac­tured by No­vo Nordisk and Sanofi. Ja­maica’s Min­istry of Health in­di­cat­ed in Au­gust 2020 that an es­ti­mat­ed 11.9 per cent of Ja­maicans or 236,200 Ja­maicans have di­a­betes.

In a no­tice on No­vem­ber 20, the Ja­maican FTC in­di­cat­ed, “On May 27, 2025, the FTC for­mal­ly no­ti­fied the par­ties and be­gan ne­go­ti­a­tions to en­sure the ac­qui­si­tion does not com­pro­mise the ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty or af­ford­abil­i­ty of in­sulin, giv­en its crit­i­cal im­por­tance to in­di­vid­u­als liv­ing with di­a­betes.”

Ac­cord­ing to the par­ties, Massy’s con­sumer prod­ucts di­vi­sion will be man­aged di­rect­ly by Aca­do, while its phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal op­er­a­tions will be in­te­grat­ed with Aven­ta. This cre­ates a dilem­ma for the Massy deal as it would re­quire the forced di­vesti­ture of an in­sulin brand by ei­ther Ja­maican com­pa­ny to a com­peti­tor. The three man­u­fac­tur­ers of those known in­sulin brands con­trol an es­ti­mat­ed 90 per cent of glob­al in­sulin sup­ply, with No­vo Nordisk in­di­cat­ing that its glob­al di­a­betes mar­ket share at 33.7 per cent.

Cari-Med Group Ltd, Ja­maica’s largest phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­trib­u­tor, dis­trib­utes the Swiss brand of prod­ucts which is man­u­fac­tured by Aca­do Foods. Se­prod Ltd con­trols Facey Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Ja­maica’s sec­ond largest dis­trib­u­tor.

While Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion Ja­maica’s fi­nan­cials aren’t pub­lic, Massy at­trib­uted four per cent of its in­te­grat­ed re­tail seg­ment rev­enue or $417 mil­lion from the Ja­maican busi­ness in 2024.

Massy’s 2024 an­nu­al re­port not­ed that the busi­ness ex­pe­ri­enced chal­lenges with the loss of a ma­jor line. Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion Ja­maica pre­vi­ous­ly dis­trib­uted the Carlisle port­fo­lio of goods be­fore it went to Aven­ta Ja­maica in Jan­u­ary 2024. Agos­ti­ni pre­vi­ous­ly ac­quired Carlisle Lab­o­ra­to­ries in De­cem­ber 2022.

Massy Hold­ings’s lat­est fi­nan­cials re­vealed that the Ja­maican busi­ness re­port­ed $2.69 mil­lion in net prof­it for the third quar­ter and $13.83 mil­lion for the nine month pe­ri­od. Al­though it’s un­known the im­pact that a di­vesti­ture would have on ei­ther busi­ness, it could cre­ate com­pli­ca­tions for oth­er brands dis­trib­uted by the same man­u­fac­tur­er, pos­si­bly putting oth­er dis­trib­uted prod­ucts at risk.

Massy in­di­cat­ed in Feb­ru­ary that this sale was done due to what it de­scribed as lim­i­ta­tions on the abil­i­ty to de­vel­op the busi­ness to its fullest po­ten­tial since it didn’t have a man­u­fac­tur­ing or re­tail pres­ence in the Ja­maican mar­ket.

The Busi­ness Guardian posed sev­er­al ques­tions to Massy on Tues­day on the Ja­maica FTC’s con­cerns that the sale of Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion to a sub­sidiary of Agos­ti­ni, could cre­ate a mo­nop­oly in the sale of in­sulin prod­ucts.

In re­sponse to the ques­tions, Massy said: “The Ja­maica Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion’s  (FTC) re­view is on­go­ing. Giv­en the sen­si­tiv­i­ty at this stage and out of re­spect for all par­ties, Massy will not be com­ment­ing pub­licly at this time. The com­pa­ny re­mains ful­ly com­mit­ted to ex­e­cut­ing all trans­ac­tions with in­tegri­ty, trans­paren­cy, and in full com­pli­ance with ap­plic­a­ble laws and reg­u­la­tions. Massy re­spects the FTC’s re­view process and con­tin­ues to co­op­er­ate con­struc­tive­ly as the reg­u­la­tor com­pletes its as­sess­ment.”

This is the sec­ond Ja­maican trans­ac­tion in two years that has come un­der fire by the Ja­maican FTC. Massy Hold­ings had to make cer­tain amend­ments and con­ces­sions when it ac­quired IGL (St Lu­cia) IBC Ltd in Au­gust 2023. Massy bought this busi­ness for US$140.3 mil­lion and it is the largest play­er in the Ja­maican gas­es mar­ket.

James McLetchie was ap­point­ed as the CEO of Massy Hold­ings Ltd on Oc­to­ber 1, 2025, suc­ceed­ing David Af­fon­so, who re­tired on Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025.