Lee Chin misses $14b bond payment - Begs for more time to clear debt - Columbus share sale delayed
Michael Lee Chin has failed to come up with the US$155 million (J$13.8 billion) that AIC Barbados, the holding company for his Caribbean investments, owes bond holders. About US$108 million of the debt is owed to Jamaican investors, of which US$47 million is due...
LIME reconfigures landline phone rates - More for rental, local calls; less for overseas talktime
LIME Jamaica, saying its plan is to 'rebalance' income streams from its landline segment, will, in one month, charge customers less to make international calls, but more to call locally. Effective July 12, postpaid landline customers will pay $10 per minute...
BOJ pulls one-year CD
The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) has retired - for now - its one-year certificate of deposit, effective June 3, but has made no adjustment to rates on its remaining five tenors.The one-year instrument was being sold at 22.67 per cent at its exit, down from 24...
Gleaner Company optimistic despite difficult market
The Gleaner Company recorded a net loss of $14 million in the first quarter of 2009.
This first quarter loss was on revenue of $923 million, a one per cent decline in sales when compared to the first three months of 2008. Many firms throughout the economy...
Early retirement for H&L CEO
Four years into his tenure as chief executive officer of Hardware and Lumer Limited, Anthony Holness has called it quits and is heading into early retirement. He leaves at a rocky period for the company, a GraceKennedy outfit that manages the Rapid TrueValue and Agro Grace...
Patties get green light from Trinidad
The Jamaican Government was this week celebrating victory in a trade war with Trinidad and Tobago over what it said was that Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country's earlier attempts to block Jamaican patties from being exported there...
Empire takes over Super Plus Liguanea store
Lloyd Kerr, owner of Empire Supermarket, has opened a grocery store in Liguanea, having bought out the equipment and other assets from SuperPlus. "When things are down, that is when I take on the challenge. I love challenges," said Kerr who had established...
FSC talks up unit trust reform
IT WILL take amendments to the law, a lengthy and sometimes complicated process requiring the input of several organs of government, but the Financial Services Commission (FSC), using racing analogy, told securities dealers this week that the process...
Musson in EXPANSION mode - Blades mulls new business
Desmond Blades, the 80-year-old chairman of Musson Jamaica Limited, no longer makes the daily trek into office, but he remains just as engaged with the company whose intricate network he has left up to family members to run...
Higher cost of business cuts Carreras profit
Carreras Limited has posted a near $4.3 billion one-off gain, identified only as 'distribution from subsidiaries' but the funds have had no impact on its bottom line. The funds - which appear on the 'company' profit and loss statement...
Preparing to list on the junior JSE
The opportunities for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) listing on the junior stock exchange vary from access to capital, expansion through equity rather than debt; full tax exemption on profits for the first five years after listing, and tax on 50...
Production cut saves UC Rusal US$554m
United Company Rusal, the world's largest aluminum producer cut production and costs in the first quarter of 2009 by US$554 million, which represents around 50 per cent of its goal this year in overall cost savings of US$1.1 billion...
CEMENT DEBATE: Consumers win when cement market opens to competition - FTC study
During the last two weeks, the media has been covering the concerns raised by interested parties on both sides of the debate on the merits of maintaining the current policy of suspending the 15 per cent common external tariff...