GraceKennedy (GK) chief operating officer Don Wehby says the conglomerate expects to grow profits significantly going forward by focusing on new businesses in food and financial services across the globe.

It’s part of an objective to achieve a return on equity target of 20 per cent, said the GK executive at the firm’s Annual General meeting recently. GK’s return on equity currently stands at 11.8 per cent.

The GK Group comprises a network of some 60 subsidiaries and associated companies across the Caribbean, North and Central America and the United Kingdom.

GK defines “new businesses” as companies formed or acquired within the last four years. And Wehby said one of the new businesses that GK is closely monitoring is its wholly-owned subsidiary, Grace Foods UK, a holding company under which its ethnic food distributor ENCO, oriental food distributor CHADHA and a food services company which supplies restaurants, Funnybones.

Wehby is buoyed by a number of established brands under Grace Foods UK, formed following the acquisition of WT Foods in 2007. These brands include Encona, Dunns River and Nurishment. Nurishment, for instance, has revenues of approximately US$18 million and GK this year started to export the brand into the region.

“Nurishment is actually a very exciting brand,” said Wehby of the nutritionally enriched milk drink. “It’s doing very well in Trinidad and also the USA.”

Wehby said other new businesses being watched closely by GK are First Global T&T (90 per cent owned), GK’s investment bank in Trinidad and Tobago; First Global Insurance Brokers (100 per cent owned), a brokerage company in the Turks and Caicos; and Trident (30 per cent owned), an insurance company in Barbados.

The chief operating officer added that strong exports and distribution channels have allowed the Grace brand to strengthen its global presence, growing in most continents, including Africa, and Asia.

“I would say over the last two years the GraceKennedy group in terms of foods, have made significant progress,” Wehby said.

“I was in a Wal-Mart in Miramar and I felt very very proud in terms of what I saw, I was also in Canada (recently) and all the major chains in Canada have the Grace brands” noted the GK executive.

GK’s overall strategy is split in four areas which Wehby said forms the foundation on which the firm will drive its growth: financial performance; customer centricit;, efficiency of internal processes; and employee learning and growth.

“We have been focusing as an executive committee on execution, implementing on time and committing to what we say, whether it is an internal control issue or deliverable in terms of profitability targets,” said Wehby.

“We have been measuring this in terms of doing things right the first time, doing things on time and doing things within budget. This is an example of us executing properly,” he said.