One of the Caribbean’s best known investment managers, the Barbados-based Fortress Fund Managers, says the performance of Guyana’s economy places it foremost on the list of Caribbean territories in which it is earnestly seeking new opportunities to broaden its investment thrust.
Following a meeting of its top officials in Bridgetown last Friday to discuss local, regional and global prospects for equity investment, Investment Director Roger Cave disclosed to Barbados Business Advocate that given Guyana’s impressive growth rate Fortress Fund—which already has investments here—would welcome the opportunity to have more.
The fund’s heightened interested in investment possibilities here has resulted from the fact that “in recent years the Guyana economy has maintained some impressive growth rates at the same time that its Caribbean neighbours continue to register either marginal growth or none at all,” Business Advocate says.
Fortress Fund Managers, which was established in 1996, offers a range of investment products to clients both inside and outside the region. It has reportedly been sending scouts here to explore the possibility of expanding its investment base in the country; the last such visit being in 2011. Fortress’ efforts to secure reliable information on local companies is reportedly being hampered by the fact that trading information provided by the Guyana Association of Securities Companies and Intermediaries Inc (GASCI), the local stock exchange, is limited to far too few companies.
Fortress Fund’s Portfolio Manager Christopher Calendar is quoted by this week’s Business Advocate as saying that while the fund is aware that the Guyana economy is currently one of the top performers in the Caribbean “there are only 15 companies listed on the stock exchange and not every one of those companies is to our liking and those that are to our liking, the volumes are small.” Fortress, which has 40 per cent of its investments in the region, says that with few new listings for Guyana coming to the regional exchange, its manager has been forced to look elsewhere for investments.
Fortress Fund offers investments in equities, fixed income and real estate, and launched its first fund, the Fortress Caribbean Growth Fund, investing mainly in equities in the region, in December 1996. Three years later it launched its Fortress Caribbean Property Fund Ltd to invest primarily on regional real estate and which is listed on both the Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago stock exchange. Since then it has unveiled several other investment products including the Fortress Caribbean High Interest Fund, investing mainly in fixed income instruments; the Fortress Caribbean Pension Fund Ltd; and the Fortress Global Value Fund, a British Virgin Islands-based product that provides opportunities for investment outside the region. In December 2007, the company unveiled its Fortress Personal Retirement Fund, a retirement savings plan, introduced through its Fortress Insurance Company Ltd
Fortress’ three shareholders are Island Securities Ltd, a Barbados-based private investment company wholly owned by Cave, the Nation Corporation, the largest news media company in Barbados and the well-known retail company Cave Shepherd & Company which is listed on the Barbados stock exchange.
Fortress says it is seeking to invest in companies whose products are well-established on local and regional markets, whose shares are attractively priced as measured by their price-to-earnings and price-to-book-value ratios that record high rates of growth in revenue and profits.
