Caribbean Flavours open to joint venture partners under five-year plan
THE NEW owners of Caribbean Flavours and Fragrances Limited are finalising a five-year plan to grow the company with consideration to revamp the product portfolio to add new streams of revenue and potentially reshape supply logistics.
The plan will require new investments, but Managing Director Derrick Cotterell says those are to be determined as elements of the programme are finalised.
Cotterell’s company, Derrimon Trading Company Limited, acquired majority control of Caribbean Flavours earlier this year, having forged a deal with the fragrance company’s founders to take over their stake.
The five-year plan being devised in the wake of that acquisition that grew Derrimon’s share in the company from 49 per cent to 75 per cent.
“It is really a plan for growth and expansion of the business,” Cotterell told Gleaner Business on his return from a Caribbean trip aimed at identifying prospective partners.
“That will see us looking at going into other revenue streams to include the indigenous products such as ginger, fever grass, pimento oil, and so on. In that way, we can get into revenue streams and get deeper into flavours,” he said.
Caribbean Flavours currently makes annual revenue of around $360 million and appears on track to hit $400 million at year end June 2017, if its fourth quarter performance tracks with last’s year out-turn. It’s already at $300 million at the ninemonth mark, as its latest financials show.
BUILDING RELATIONSHIP
Cotterell is holding back on the full details of the new plan, but says it includes relationship building with current partners, and that his primary focus would be supply chain management.
“The only sort of diversification that we are contemplating is a deepening of the backward linkages, so that when it comes to say, ginger, we want to go closer to the source; and we will take a serious look at it and see where that takes us,” he said.
The programme will require capital expenditure, but the full budget is yet to be finalised.
“That is a difficult call at this time. What I can say is that we are willing to go into joint ventures, and if that means getting either technology or equipment via that route to improve our output, then we will go that way,” said Cotterell, who is also executive chairman of Derrimon.
Still, there are already signs that the company is reinvesting. At year end June 2016, its capex tripled but was still just $2.5 million of spend. In the ninemonth period to March 2017, however, its capital expenditures have already topped $14 million.
In the quarter ending June, Caribbean Flavours’ earnings fell from $19 million to $12 million. Over nine months, profits fell from $56 million to $54 million. The decline was due to payments of professional fees for services linked to analysis of Derrimon’s takeover offer.
Cotterell replaced Anand James as CEO of Caribbean Flavours at the end of last May. Asked about his two leadership roles, he responded they are two different businesses “and so there is no conflict”. Derrimon is a $6 billion company by revenues, which distributes food items and operates two grocery businesses. Caribbean Flavours manufactures and supplies flavours to beverage, confectionery and baking companies.
James remains a director of Caribbean Flavours and has been retained as a consultant.