The Guyana operations of the Trinidad and Tobago-owned conglomerate Neal and Massy has again come in for high praise from company Chairman Arthur Lok Jack in his most recent disclosure regarding the financial performance of the company.
Last week Lok Jack cited the performance of Neal and Massy’s distribution and industrial equipment operations in Guyana as being a significant contributor to an increase in the company’s profit before tax of TT$385m in the 2012 financial year, up from TT$359m in 2011.
In a year when, according to Lok Jack the company continued to experience a challenging economic environment both its operations in Guyana and its automotive and retail businesses in Trinidad recorded strong growth in 2012. In his review of the performance of the company up to March 2012 Lok Jack said that the impact of the current economic environment was felt by the company most keenly in Barbados and Jamaica where foreign exchange earnings declined, unemployment increased and energy and food prices continued to escalate.
In September last year the company announced that it had hit a major hurdle, incurring significant losses in its investment in the Barbados-based Almond Beach Hotels which had pushed the conglomerate’s overall profits down to TT$139m, about a third of the level of the previous financial year when it made TT338m. Neal and Massy was expected to wrap up its interests in Almond Hotels by early this year.
