Quantas to pay dividend after strong year
Entity to launch new investment company before year end
QUANTAS Advantage, the investment management company launched by the Adrian Stokes-led Quantas Capital in October 2022, is to pay its first-ever dividend later this year, after enjoying two years of “very, very strong performances”.
“We are going to have record earnings in Quantas Advantage for the year ending June 2024 where the return to investors will be very, very attractive, so we are very, very happy about the performance to date, and we will, in line with what we communicated to investors, be paying strong dividends from that entity,” Stokes told the Jamaica Observer on Monday.
He didn’t outline the dollar value of the dividend he is intent on recommending to the board when it next meets after the June 30 end of its financial year. He, however, said 85 per cent of the earnings, which are in US dollars, will be paid out. In terms of returns, Stokes said it will be in the double digits.
Stokes is the CEO of Quantas Capital, a Jamaicabased company that provides advisory services to Barbadosbased investment company Quantas Advantage.
“We had some notable achievements throughout the year in terms of the investment company’s mandate. That company has had some significant milestone over the last 24 months. In fact, we have been doing some very interesting securitisations in the market,” Stokes added as he gave an update on the company’s performance.
“In fact, we closed a major deal in March of this year. One of the major securitisations done in the market for a while, where the company, Quantas Advantage purchased a number of corporate loans in the market, and by doing that, we were able to free up capital and liquidity for the sellers of those assets and then what we did, once those loans were purchased, we created new financial instruments, bonds, of different maturities that were bought into by different types of investors,” he added.
Stokes didn’t disclose what corporations’ loans were bought. However, he said Quantas Advantage did over $5 billion in securitisation in its current financial year.
“I think that for a company just coming into the market, again, that is very, very significant and we are very, very happy that people have placed confidence in Quantas to execute these types of transactions for them.”
Quantas Advantage was launched in 2022 after raising US$17 million on the private capital market, the largest private raise in the market at that time, to purchase various contractual cashflows including receivables, leases and mortgages and these assets are then repackaged, for example, as bonds and sold on to other investors.
“The vision is to build a company, Quantas Advantage, that would focus on securitisation and I am very, very happy to say we had a very strong first year in that company, and now we are in our second year which is due to be concluded June 30, 2024 and we are actually headed to a very, very strong performance in that vehicle.”
Stokes said the company is now looking at new asset classes to invest in that will “provide a fairly attractive return for the investors in the company Quantas Advantage”.
“We are looking at opportunities in the Caribbean, not just in Jamaica,” he continued. “We have a very robust pipeline of deals that we are looking at.” He said he expects the company will have a strong showing next year based on the deals that are now being pursued.
“The future is bright from what we are seeing, both in terms of our securitisation company, Quantas Advantage, and in terms of new types of investment companies that we will be bringing to market,” Stokes noted.
He, however, said due to securities law, he could not reveal more at the moment but said the new company will come to market in the next six months.
“That will be a very, very interesting opportunity, which at the appropriate time I will talk to you about, but what I can tell you, it is going to make a difference. It is going to make an impact beyond what you will normally see from investment companies in the financial space. It is going to make a real difference to people’s lives.”
That will come in phase two of the company’s growth plan. The first phase was executed in the first two years of the company’s existence focused on building out in Jamaica with the climax being the dividend to be paid in a few weeks.
“In phase two that we are currently in, we will now start to look at and execute on the opportunities that we saw in the Caribbean.”
He was revealing little in the way of the opportunities to be pursued or in which countries, but said “it’s close to home in a country that doesn’t have restrictions on capital flows.”