Mayberry to raise more funds for real estate

MAYBERRY INVESTMENTS plans to raise up to $750 million to finance the acquisition of real estate lots for development.

The company operates an investment banking and brokerage firm. It intends to raise the funds in three separate issues, the first being $256.4 million of short-term debt for issue on July 28 at a fixed interest of 6.75 per cent. The note will mature in October 2022. The terms and timing of the others are yet to be disclosed.

“This placement is part of a larger transaction involving the placement over time of three series of notes, up to an aggregate principal sum of J$750 million,” said Mayberry CEO Gary Peart.

“It will give customers fixed-income paper at higher rates than the bank,” said Peart, who was speaking from Japan.

Peart declined to shed more light on the real estate developments or their locations at this time. The company said real estate forms part of its portfolio of assets and investments. The developments are not related to its real estate projects with food and technology conglomerate Musson Jamaica, he said when asked. Musson and Mayberry are partners in Chalmers Commercial Limited, the developer of commercial property at Chalmers Avenue in Kingston.

“We have diversified assets, and we use different types at a given time,” said Peart, regarding the rationale for real estate investment. “We see value in these developments,” he said.

Most sectors of the Jamaican economy have suffered declines under the pandemic, but the category encapsulating real estate, renting and business activities grew 1.9 per cent in the March 2021 quarter, according to the Statistical Institute of Jamaica