In all probability, most Jamaicans have, within the past week, come in contact with a product that businessman Ian Levy was instrumental in bringing to the local market.

These ubiquitous items - ranging from water meters, to fire engines, water and garbage trucks, are hardly the stuff for an afternoon discussion.
But they represent a US$400-million trade in French-made industrial equipment, for which Levy, through his Ian K Agencies, of which he is chairman and principal shareholder, has been responsible for the past 28 years.

Levy pointing to the Observer Table Talk award won by Norma On The Terrace of which he is 50% owner.

Levy has also had a major hand in a less mundane venture.
As one of three entrepreneurs who started Supreme Ventures in 2001, he helped to reshape the Jamaica gaming sector. This remains a work in progress.

He also has his arms wrapped around the gourmet industry - forming in 1999, a 50/50 partnership with Shirley to create one of Jamaica's most respected restaurants - Norma On The Terrace, located at Devon House in Kingston.

It is, however, via the lesser-known Ian K Agencies through which most of Levy's entrepreneurial energy continues to be directed.
For example, last year December, Levy was instrumental in bringing to Jamaica a French firm for which he is the agent, and which won a US$3.6-million government contract that promises to revolutionise the island's security industry.

Levy (right) with two employees of Norma On The Terrace on Monday.

SAGEM has been mandated to develop an Automated Palm and Fingerprint Identification System (APFIS) that will make it easy for cops to track down and identify criminals.
For Levy, the significance of this contract is not measured by its monetary value, but the impact it will have "in the critical fight against crime in Jamaica".

The multi-million dollar deal is only the latest in a portfolio of major business that Ian K Agencies has forged in a unique partnership with the French over more than a generation.

Three years ago this agency secured soft funding from a French bank, BNP Paribas, to finance the acquisition of 20 Renault trucks for the National Solid Waste Management Authority.

Levy is part owner of Supreme Ventures, which owns Acropolis in Kingston.

To secure that deal, Levy used a business template that he developed nearly 30 years ago when he formed his company: he identified a critical government need, found a supplier, and a banker that could provide terms that were friendly enough to make it spin.

"This formula has been used for over 25 years," he says. "We are particularly proud of what has emerged."
The template was developed in 1978 just one year after Levy formed Ian K Agencies. He noted that the National Water Commission would charge a flat rate to most of its customers - an approach which he was convinced cost the NWC in terms of revenue and lacked the built-in incentive for water conservation.

"Jamaica was in a bad economic way," he remarks. "I realised that the government needed equipment for all sectors of the economy."
A few years earlier, Levy had met a Frenchman, who was vice-president of the largest private bank in France.

"He made available millions of dollars to refit Jamaica with industrial equipment with favourable financing," Levy says of the French banker. "The financing that I negotiated was better than what the government was getting."

Levy's 50% ownership of Norma on the Terrace is one of many reasons he has copped the Business Observer's third nomination as Business Leader for 2005.

In short, by 1978, Ian K Agencies had sold to the local government ministry, 120,000 water meters secured from French company Schlumberger. The deal, worth over US$10 million and financed by Banque Paribas was by Levy's recollection, "the largest single purchase of water meters in the world at that time".
The water meters helped to modernise NWC's entire revenue collection system.

"It created a dramatic increase in the number of homes in Kingston and others parts of the island that became metered," noted Levy.
The deal did something else. It planted in Levy's mind, the idea that a business could be built around identifying state needs, and finding creative and affordable ways to meet those needs.

"At that time, Jamaica needed so many things, so we would conduct our own surveys," he explains. "For example, we did a survey in which we looked at the state of fire service and garbage collection done by the KSAC and parish councils."

The results of that survey were converted into another major business opportunity: Levy secured his first contract for specialised vehicles for the government. Again he turned to his French connections to supply the 133 Renault trucks for Jamaica's fire and garbage collection services - and at "terms the government could not get".

That Levy, still in his early 30s, could put together such a large deal, walk into a French bank and secure the funding on terms that would compel the Jamaican government to do business with him, did not happen overnight.
The fact is that, as he himself is unabashed in admitting, he was schooled in the culture of business within a family that knew nothing but success.

"I grew up in a family of very successful businessmen," he says. "I knew from a teenager that I was going to do business."
Ian's father, K H Ivan Levy, was a well-known Jamaican businessman who was part of five brothers, who along with their father formed the Levy Brothers.

Ian is the third child, and only boy of four children for his father and mother Gloria. The girls: Sandra Ramsay, who works for Food For The Poor; Pamela Murray who resides in Canada, and Nyla D'Andrea who lives in Jamaica.

"They were a highly industrial set of men," says Levy of his father and uncles. "They started the first set of pharmacies in Jamaica - Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Company. One of them, Sydney, eventually started Jamaica Broilers, which is now run by Robert (Ian's cousin).
Levy grew up with an industrialist and business pioneer as his father. He recalls, for example, the role his father played in introducing television to Jamaica as chairman of Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation from 1962 to 1972.

Levy Snr also established several companies in Jamaica, including an asbestos cement pipe manufacturing operation, and a chocolate factory that became the forerunner to Highgate Chocolate now owned by Claude Clarke.

The father was also closely associated with Jamaica's first prime minister, Sir Alexander Bustamante, with whom the Levy family were neighbours on Tucker Avenue in Kingston.
"We grew up in an affluent environment," says Levy. "The entire family was very successful."

Levy attended St Andew Prep School, where the Manleys were also students, and later, Miss Sasso's school near Cross Roads in Kingston.
At Jamaica College, Levy recalls being "lectured more than taught" and being told that they as students were the future leaders of Jamaica, and that "one of us would eventually become the prime minister".

Among the students at the time were two contenders for that job - the opposition Jamaica Labour Party leader Bruce Golding, and national security minister, Dr Peter Phillips. Last week Phillips lost the race to become PNP leader and prime minister, to Portia Simpson Miller.
At JC, Levy was vice-captain for both the school's cricket and football teams. He passed eight 'O' level subjects - four with distinction, and three 'A' levels - all with distinction.

After high school he enrolled at CAST to study construction engineering, but after the first two of the three-year course, left to fully concentrate on helping his father develop the business.
"I was deeply involved in the business and was marketing asbestos cement pipe all over the region," he says.

While at Caribbean Asbestos Ltd, young Levy was sent on a business trip to Italy to negotiate contracts for the supply of equipment to a second pipe manufacturing company that his father was setting up in Old Harbour. One factory was already in operation in Montego Bay.

"That trip sealed my faith as a businessman," he noted.
Levy who as marketing manager at Caribbean Asbestos would travel around the region to secure market, had to wear a beard and moustache to conceal his youth.

"I had to deal with prime ministers and major executives, and my age was becoming a issue," he said. "I decided to grow my beard and moustache to look older. I have worn them since."

In 1974, with his parents having emigrated to Canada, Levy launched his first company - Scientific Distributors in partnership with two investors. The company manufactured and distributed industrial and sanitation chemicals.
Levy was managing director.

After three years, Levy sold the firm - his partners having already migrated. He then formed Ian K Agencies.
Levy developed the business by identifying infrastructure and other public sector needs, and then found ways to fund the solution.
He turned to the French.

"This was a new arena for me," he says. "I found myself dealing with major government projects, negotiating the purchase of equipment through industrial companies, and organising financing through French banks."
Levy's growing relationship with the French coincided with two developments: a move by the French themselves to gain new markets in the Caribbean, and a personal friendship that was developed between Jamaica's then prime minister, Michael Manley, and Francoise Mitterand at the time, president of France. Both were members of Socialist International.

Here is how Levy explained the approach used by Ian K Agencies to win government contracts: "Each of our projects came about based on surveys and investigation. Then we went to the government and told them what they needed. We knew the government did not have any money, so we would get the solutions engineered, get the supplier and give the government a proposition with financing."

One such opportunity that Levy took advantage of was the absence of fireboats to provide protection to ships that docked in Jamaica's waters. "We did a study and found out that it was illegal for cruise ships to come here without fire protection and that Jamaica would be liable in the event of a fire," he said.

Ian K Agencies has over the years sold three French-made fireboats to the Jamaica Fire Brigade over the past several years. However, he pointed out that at present, neither Kingston nor Port Antonio had fire boats.
Levy said that contracts for the supply of a range of specialised industrial equipment followed: garbage, water and sprinkler trucks, heavy duty service trucks, fire units, radar equipment, ductile iron pipes and fittings.

"From that beginning until today, we have done 25 to 30 major contracts and have represented 30 of the largest industrial companies in France," he said.

Among the items were locomotives for the Jamaica Railway Corporation. In this deal, the government was offered a 25-year loan at four per cent interest.
Ian K Agencies also leased French-made aircraft to the former Trans Jamaica Airlines.

In breaking into the French industrial products market, Levy was also opening up Jamaica, and the rest of the region to France, a development that did not go unnoticed in that European country.
"It was the first time that France was coming to the region," Levy pointed out. "French companies subsequently got contracts in Central and South America."

For his role in developing trade relationship between Jamaica and France, the French government last year honoured Levy with the Ordre National du Merite - one of its highest national awards. It placed the Jamaican businessman in an elite group of non-French citizens to be so honoured.
The awards ceremony was held at the French Embassy in Kingston.

Levy told the Business Observer that part of his commitment to the Jamaican government was that he would not import the same vehicles for the private sector.

"It meant that pilfering of the spare parts was not a factor because there would be nobody to sell them to," he explained.
Ian K Agencies also committed to stock enough spare parts for the vehicles it imported, so as to keep them on the road.
"There is no Renault truck that is not on the road because of the lack of spare parts," he boasts.

As part of a move to broaden his business interests, Levy in 1999, joined with two friends - Peter Stewart (now deceased) and Paul Hoo who had an interest in entering the gaming market - and formed Supreme Ventures.
"In 1999 Peter Stewart came to me and said he and Paul Hoo had been trying to get a lottery licence from 1992 and could not get it," said Levy.

"They could not understand why. They thought that through my negotiation skills and the use of my office, I could help secure the licence."
Levy said he inquired of the minister of finance, Dr Omar Davies, if the Jamaica Lottery Company had a monopoly on the market.

"Davies wanted to know if the Jamaica Lottery Company would become uneconomic if competition was introduced," said Levy.
Surveys and analyses suggested otherwise.

They conclude that they could introduce other games in the market, which would expand the industry to everybody's benefit.
"Davies accepted the explanation and in 2001 gave us a licence to operate."

Almost simultaneously Levy had met and had become good friends with culinary expert Norma Shirley. In 1999, he formed a 50/50 partnership with her to create Norma On The Terrace restaurant at Devon House in Kingston. He is chairman and Shirley, managing director.

Levy says he is proud of the performance of the restaurant. In May 2000 it was one of two in the Caribbean to be nominated by Conde Nast Traveler as one of the 60 best new restaurants in the world. It has also won the "Best restaurant" award at the Jamaica Observer's annual "Table Talk" award.

Levy is now drawing up plans for a Caribbean expansion - beginning with The Bahamas this year, to be followed by other islands next year.
However, he remains even more excited by the prospect of contributing to Jamaica's crime-fighting effort through the establishment this year of the automatic palm and finger identification system.

"It will go a far way to help solving crime in Jamaica," he says. "My company has now become involved in the security and border and immigration control business."
Levy, twice married, has three children with his first wife - Tara Luci-Ann, Matthew Kent, Brigit Anita.

He has a stepson, Steven Thompson and two grandchildren Luke and Mia.
His wife, Cecelia is a fashion designer, composer and songwriter.
His son Matthew Kent is now managing director of Ian K Agencies.
The company, located on Hagley Park Road in Kingston, employs 15 workers.

Editor's note:
The above Business Leader story, which appeared in the Business Observer on Ash Wednesday is reprinted today with minor corrections.

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