Scotia Investments Jamaica Limited (SIJL) recently led the successful raise of approximately $250 million to refinance maturing preference shares for air-conditioning and energy solutions provider CAC 2000 Limited.

Senior manager of investment banking at SIJL Nicholas Dawson said that the entity partnered with CAC to help the company refinance its existing listed preference shares of $200 million, but also as part of the package included an additional $50 million to serve as working capital support.

“Given CAC’s strong performance and investor confidence, we were able to successfully raise $250 million despite challenging market conditions and we are very happy to continue to support the growth and transformation of yet another strong Jamaican business,” he said.

Commenting on the transaction completed last month, CEO of CAC 2000 Gia Abraham said that the $50-million boost provided as working capital support will help the company to facilitate the completion of some ongoing projects which include the continued build-out of its first retail outlet located at Village Plaza in St Andrew, as well as to propel its newly appointed Crown Ltd dealer status.

Crown, a US-based company renowned for selling forklifts and warehousing equipments, has received global recognition for the design and quality of its products. Having secured the distributorship contract in Jamaica, CAC, through the new partnership, is hoping to increase its revenues.

Since the pandemic CAC’s revenues have been significantly shaken owing in part to global market volatilities.

“This initiative will be complementary to our business, especially in the service arena, and will allow CAC to further diversify our products, services and revenue streams,” Abrahams had said in announcing the partnership.

CAC 2000, born out of Conditioned Air and Associated Contractors Ltd, has an over eight-decade-old history in the commercial and residential air-conditioning space. Over its long history it has been the distributor of brands such as Carrier, Broad, LG, Fujitsu, Carlyle, Honeywell, Sanyo, Emerson, TopTech, and Fasson, offering some of the largest stock of technologically advanced air-conditioning and refrigeration systems in Jamaica.

Repositioning from its poor performance at the end of the first quarter ended January, when it recorded a loss of $51.8 million coupled with reduced revenues of $127.8 million, the company assured shareholders in its interim report that while the results were “disappointing”, it was already taking steps to reverse the loss and improve its financial position.

“Our revenues declined compared to the same period last year, and our net profit was negative. The result was primarily due to a significant decline in revenues projected from the Projects Department,” the directors stated in the report.

“In 2022, projects suffered significant delays in the delivery of goods [due to longer lead and delivery times]; however, we are pleased to report that CAC has had a substantial increase in the number of jobs won since January 31, 2023,” the report continued.