Mayberry rebounds after COVID-19 stock market fallout
Mayberry Investments Limited (MIL) said it is looking forward to a return to positive growth in profits, despite the significant fallout in the stock market stemming from the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Mayberry’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Gary Peart told an investors’ briefing last week that the result of the company’s second quarter performance, ended June 30, represents a nice rebound in comparison to the previous quarter last year, with comprehensive income attributed to shareholders totalling 469 million a net book value of $7.83 and shareholders’ equity of $9.4 billion.
“What drove that was a rebound in stock prices of certain stocks during the second quarter,” he said.
Peart said that for Mayberry Jamaica Equities (MJE), a subsidiary company of MIL, even with a reduced net book value of $8.85 and a $10.6 billion in shareholders’ value, down $6.8 billion for the same quarter last year, the company still has a healthy capital base irrespective of the fallouts in the stock market.
For the period, the entity recorded a net loss of $37.8 million. He cited Supreme Ventures, Derrimon Trading, and Wigton among others as some of the top holdings that will, however, continue to add value to this portfolio.
In purporting a strategy for the way forward, Peart also said the investment and equities firm will be seeking to increase its year-over-year profits, increase return on equity and reduce operating expenses.
“We are looking to increase profits. We think the market will be a little flat, if not declining for the rest of the year. But how we position ourselves in terms of the different companies is going to be key. We think that, depending on when a vaccine is found and how we manage COVID-19, is going to determine the pace of the recovery, but we stand ready to take advantage of that when that occurs,” he said.
Peart said the company, which has always been big on the use of technology, views the process of digitisation as a crucial part of improving its operations for the way forward.
“Mayberry’s strength has always been about our customers. We have done a good job in attracting customers over time and we will continue to do so, especially with our new digital platform,” he said.
Mayberry’s Executive Chairman Christopher Berry added that while digitisation would not significantly reduce operating expenses for the business, it would provide them with the opportunity to significantly expand capacity.
“We will have the capability to take many more clients than we have now,” Berry said. “Right now, we only have one branch and we are constrained by physical space and people’s ability to access the service. Once we digitise, that boundary will no longer be there, so we will be able to have a lot more clients with basically the same cost.”
Peart further noted that based on current customer response, the company’s plans to expand digitisation, coupled with the improvement of its digital app, which allows customers from anywhere in the world to check statements, has placed it at the forefront of this initiative.
“We’ve now upgraded that app where customers can now put in orders to buy and check stocks, and every other month an additional service is added. The ease with which we can do business has allowed us to also become even closer to customers.
“The response has been great, and we expect it to get greater as we put more and more services onto the platform. This will also help with reductions in utilities, paper usage, etc, which ends up being lower when the use of the app is combined with work from home,” he said.