The US$10M distribution centre commissioned on Wednesday by the rebranded Massy Group at Montrose has been hailed by its CEO Gervase Warner as the most sophisticated across the sprawling conglomerate and one that would create more jobs here as plans for the opening of two supermarkets here by 2016 proceed.
In an exclusive interview with Stabroek News on the day the 75,000 square-foot centre was inaugurated on the site of the former Starlite drive-in cinema, Warner exulted over the features of the facility.
Declaring that he was very impressed he said it was a “Custom-built warehouse, very high ceiling… forklifts that can rack from the floor to ceiling… sophisticated warehouse management system …different types of cold rooms for refrigerated, frozen and air-conditioned type of products.” He added that the “scale of it is enormous…when you visit the facility. …I think everybody will want their products distributed through our operation…”
In its 45th year of operations here, Warner said the facility would make Massy a lot more efficient considering that the group
was previously functioning with six warehouses all around Georgetown. Consolidation at Montrose will save a “huge amount” in efficiencies and demurrage costs, he stated.
Asked whether the 90-year-old Massy Group is now expected to distribute other product lines via the new facility, Warner said this was so but said he was not in a position to provide any more information at this point.
The distribution centre feeds into the company’s plans for two supermarkets here by the end of 2015 or early 2016 on the East Bank near to the Providence Stadium, on land owned by cricketer Ramnaresh Sarwan and on the East Coast on an empty lot being developed by Trinidad business Movietowne. These, he said, would be “large footprint” supermarkets which will in addition sell a small amount of non-food items.
Asked whether there were other areas that the Trinidad-based Massy Group was prospecting for investment here, Warner said that the energy area was one that Massy was interested in. Massy currently provides services to oil companies and recently expanded this service to Colombia. If oil was discovered here in commercial quantities, Massy, Warner said, would be interested. Massy is also open to alternative energy investments but there is no proposal being considered.
Asked about his concerns about the political instability here arising from the 2011 general elections, Warner jokingly stated that “It is quite stable, it is a stable gridlock.”
He added: “This is 45 years in Guyana for us and we have been in Guyana through all sorts of regimes including the Forbes Burnham years… and so actually this looks pretty good compared to those things, when you know you couldn’t get dollars out and that sort of stuff… but the truth of the matter is we try to make sure that we are not dependent on a political environment. But clearly political environments affect all businesses. …So I guess I make the point that we have seen worse (here) …and surely we would benefit if it were better… We try to work with whatever regime is in power with respect to what we see as relevant policies or projects that we can be a part of for the benefit of the country of Guyana.”
With a remittance service here as part of the Massy Group, Warner, who has been CEO since 2009 with the former Neal and Massy, was asked about the impact of the non-passage of the Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism on the business.
He said, “It is really unfortunate for Guyana and all of us who operate in Guyana because the international legislation around anti-money laundering and the requirements for disclosure to the United States and the FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) and the penalties that can be enforced upon companies and directors are quite considerable.”
He added, “…so Guyana not signing on and becoming a blacklisted country from the anti-money laundering perspective creates a huge burden of due diligence for us in terms of interacting with the Guyana operations… it also of course creates this environment in which …the access to international capital for Guyana is very limited …You know we had some people actually try to convince us that it was not a good idea to invest in Guyana because of this blacklisting and we are about to put some significant capital into these two stores (supermarkets) …for us we have been through much worse days in Guyana …we didn’t agree (with the advice not to invest) but do recognize from that perspective there are people outside of Guyana who are looking at potential investments in Guyana and looking at this blacklisting issue and saying maybe we should not invest… that can’t be good for the country,” he said emphatically.
The cost of transactions to the company are also higher as a result.
“You have to ask for more paperwork it is more intrusive in terms of accepting customers from Guyana or accepting transactions arising out of Guyana so you have to have more staff to process that information there is risk associated …the more information you require the more opportunity there is of non-conformances and regulators don’t like non conformances,” he said.
For two years now the government and the opposition have deadlocked over the legislative changes which the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force says are required. Guyana was recently subject to a review by the Financial Action Task Force and has been given more time to put the legislation in place. It is also working on the non-legislative aspects of the anti-money laundering architecture.
With the rebranding of the group also formalized on Wednesday, companies such as Neal and Massy Guyana Limited, Asso-ciated Industries Limited, CCS Guyana Limited, Demerara Oxygen Com-pany Ltd, NM Services Ltd, NM Security Solutions Inc, Trading and Distribution Inc and Geddes Grant will all now be just Massy.
Warner noted that the rationale for the changing of the company’s new corporate identity was a strategic move so that subsidiaries will become more interdependent as they work together to achieve the one-company objective. He said that the consolidation offers many benefits to the customer, employees and the company.
“We believe that redefining our corporate brand strengthens that cohesion across our companies to better communicate to our customers, and all our stakeholders, the benefit of doing business with us… Now with one Massy throughout the region it makes sense,” he said.
