Mayberry to develop villas in Montego Bay
BROKERAGE FIRM Mayberry Investments Limited plans to develop villas in the tourism city of Montego Bay, part of new efforts by the company to invest more in real estate in partnership with others.
"We are high on Jamaica and although we are known for investing heavily in equities we feel that asset prices will increase not just in equities but also in real estate," said Mayberry CEO Gary Peart.
Mayberry acquired around seven acres of land at Mahoe Bay in Ironshore years ago, which will be used for the development.
"We are not clear as yet the timeline for development because we need to find the right partner," said Peart.
"We bought the property, because we saw an opportunity for the type of villa development," he said, but declined to disclose the cost of the acquisition, nor would he comment on the current size of the company’s real estate portfolio.
Mayberry Investment' key assets include holdings in dozens of listed companies.
"We own other real estate both by ourselves and with partners," said Peart, who was not willing to reveal other developments at this time -which are considered to span both the residential and commercial real estate markets – to respect the privacy of other partners.
Mayberry's real estate projects are still one-off ventures by the group, but Peart said the company would consider creating a real estate arm down the road, "if the opportunity arises".
Earlier this year, Mayberry Investments set up a separate equity company called Mayberry Jamaica Equities Limited, which it listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange. Mayberry Jamaica's total assets were estimated at $18.4 billion at the end of the September quarter, more than double the $7.5 billion recorded for the comparative quarter in 2017. This represented a 147 per cent rise in assets due mainly to increased value of equities, with particular emphasis on Lasco Financial Services Limited, Caribbean Producers Limited, Blue Power Group Limited, Iron Rock Insurance Company Limited and Supreme Ventures Limited.
The company also acquired a $2.2-billion loan in the quarter, which it previously announced would be used to buy more stock.
Mayberry Jamaica's net profit nearly quadrupled in the third quarter, from $65 million to $249 million. CHILDREN BORN in Jamaica at this time will only be 54 per cent as productive when they reach the age of 18 as they could be if provided with complete education and full health, according to the human capital index, a new study launched by the World Bank last week.
On the other hand, those in Trinidad & Tobago will have 61 per cent of the labour productivity they could have had if provided with the skills, knowledge and experience as well as the necessities for a healthy life.
According to the study, Trinidad, followed by Jamaica, have made significant human capital gains and rank ahead of other countries in the Caribbean region, but the researchers point out that despite such progress important gaps remain.
The World Bank describes human capital as consisting of the knowledge, skills and health that people accumulate throughout their lives, enabling them to realise their potential as productive members of society.
The human capital project, which the bank announced in 2017, is a global effort to accelerate more and better investments in people for greater equity and economic growth.
"We can end extreme poverty and create more inclusive societies by developing human capital," said the bank, noting that "this requires investing in people through nutrition, healthcare, quality education, jobs and skills”.
The index measures key points along the trajectory from birth to adulthood of a child born today.
HIGH SURVIVAL RATE
It is made up of five indicators: the probability of survival to age five, a child's expected years of schooling, harmonised test scores as a measure of quality of learning, adult survival rate (the fraction of 15-year-olds that will survive to age 60), and the proportion of children who are not stunted.
In a brief on Jamaica's human capital index, the World Bank said the probability of survival of Jamaican children to age five is 98 out of 100.
In Jamaica, children who start school at age four can expect to complete 11.7 years of preprimary, primary and secondary school by age 18. However, when years of schooling are adjusted for quality of learning that is equivalent to only 7.2 years, a learning gap of 4.5 years.
In terms of harmonised test scores, students in Jamaica score 387 on a scale where 625 represents advanced attainment and 300 represents minimum attainment.
Across Jamaica, 87 per cent of 15-year-olds will survive until age 60, a statistic representing a proxy for the range of fatal and non-fatal health outcomes that a child born today will experience as an adult under current conditions.
For Jamaica, 94 out of 100 children are not stunted, while the remaining six out of 100 are stunted and are at risk of cognitive and physical limitations that can last a lifetime, according to the index
The World Bank study shows that in Jamaica, the human capital index for girls is higher than for boys. It also found that in 2017, Jamaica's human capital index was slightly lower than the average for its region and lower than the average for its income group.
RAISE AWARENESS
The human capital project seeks to raise awareness and increase demand for interventions to build human capital and aims to accelerate better and more investments in people.
The project has three elements -- the human capital index, a programme to strengthen research and measurement on human capital, and support to countries to accelerate progress in raising human capital outcomes.
According to the World Bank, in the poorest countries in the world, there is a significant risk that a child does not even survive to his/her fifth birthday. Even if that child does reach school age, there is a further risk that he/she does not start school, let alone complete the full cycle of 14 years of school from preschool to grade 12 that is the norm in rich countries.
The time that child does spend in school may translate unevenly into learning, depending on the quality of teachers and schools he/she experiences. At age 18, that child carries with him/her lasting effects of poor health and nutrition in childhood that limits his/her physical and cognitive abilities as an adult.
The index conveys the productivity of the next generation of workers compared to a benchmark of complete education and full health. It is constructed for 157 countries.
Globally, 56 per cent of all children born today will grow up to be, at best, half as productive as they could be; and 92 per cent will grow up to be, at best, 75 per cent as productive as they could be, said the report.
suppliers of whole eggs.
But having set about hammering out supply contracts, Crafton Holdings now serves 42 accounts, with 14 being ‘hard’ contracts and the rest operating on a contingency basis, he said.
Pushing back on imports won’t be as easy, Crawford notes.
“Liquid eggs is a natural competitor to shell eggs and, therefore, the price of our product can’t be too far away from that of eggs in shell; so if America can dump into the market an overwhelming amount of shell eggs it will affect my ability to compete,” Crawford said.
Meanwhile, Crawford said he aims to go public with his company and list on the stock market, but wants to strengthen the operation before approaching the market.
“We want to maximise all the possible avenues of growth so that we will have an even more solid value proposition for investors,” Crawford said, while noting that the current environment in which interest rates are falling means the company can rely on debt financing for now.
“With interest rates trending down, we can afford to delay going public and use cheap debt to broaden our horizons and optimise growth,” Crawford said.