VMIL Investments ready to pump $2b into SMEs:
VICTORIA MUTUAL Investments Limited, VMIL, raised $2 billion to pump into small and micro enterprises, which doubles its initial intent.
VMIL, which listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange in December following an initial public offering of shares, IPO, aims to take equity positions in small companies.
“We stated in the IPO that this money would be directed at that market. Yes, at the end of 2017 we had $1 billion and subsequent to that, we raised another $1 billion. We have the funds in hand right now to finance all the opportunities that we are seeing in the market,” said VMIL Chief Executive Devon Barrett at the company’s annual general meeting on Tuesday.
VMIL remains open to raising additional funds once the pool is deployed, he said, but declined to disclose the investments already made, citing disclosure rules.
As to its corporate financing activities, VMIL raised more than $18 billion last year, with most of the funds deployed as loans to the real estate, tourism and manufacturing sectors, said Barrett, while noting that the company was also looking to financing deals within the agricultural sector.
“In agriculture, we would love to see more opportunities. We would, however, want some of them to change their activities, because some of what we are seeing is still traditional and primary agriculture,” he said.
Barrett wants farming entities to retool in order to offer products to compete against imports.
“We want to see the use of technology because that is where the world has gone. Because there is a big opportunity for import substitution using technology in agriculture, and we want investors to move up the value chain where that is concerned,” he said.
VMIL raised $684 million in its initial public offering of 300 million ordinary shares, allowing the company, a member of the VM Group, to increase its shareholder equity to around $21 billion.