SAGICOR Group Jamaica Limited (SGJ) is now the largest company on the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) by market capitalisation as it surpassed NCB Financial Group Limited (NCBFG) at the end of 2022.

While Sagicor Group Jamaica’s stock price only rose by 3.45 per cent in 2022, from $55.01 to $56.91 for a market capitalisation of $222.27 billion, NCBFG’s stock price declined 35.68 per cent, from $124.26 to $79.92, which pushed it to a market capitalisation of $197.14 billion. This is the first time since 2009 that NCB has lost its top spot, whether listed as NCB or the NCB Financial Group. NCBFG was listed in March 2017 and took the place of its subsidiary National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited.

Massy Holdings Limited, Guardian Holdings Limited, Barita Investments Limited, Scotia Group Jamaica Limited, GraceKennedy Limited, Supreme Ventures Limited, Wisynco Group Limited and JMMB Group Limited are the other companies that make up the top ten listed companies on the JSE for 2022. If Massy and Guardian are excluded, PanJam Investment Limited and Seprod Limited make up the other largest Jamaican companies by market capitalisation.

With NCBFG’s stock price decline Sagicor Group Jamaica made up 12.61 per cent of the JSE Index, which was valued at $1.76 trillion in 2022, and 11.35 per cent of the JSE Combined Index which was valued at $1.96 trillion. The JSE Index dipped by one tenth in 2022 to 355,896.64 points while the JSE Combined Index was down 8.11 per cent to 368,591.98 points.

“Given the higher interest rates, investors with cash are seeking more fixed-income investments. With the rising interest rate environment, investors are participating in local currency notes with short maturities or similar fixed-income facilities. These options give investors the ability to more quickly adjust to rising interest rates. The higher rates make equity investments more volatile as interest rates are a key component of stock valuation, affecting both pricing metrics as well as underlying company performance,” said deputy chief executive officer of the GK Financial Group Steven Whittingham in an email to the Business Observer in October.

Despite SJ surpassing NCBFG’s market capitalisation, Massy Holdings earned the most in revenue at TT$12.37 billion ($276.60 billion), with NCBFG earning the most revenue as a Jamaican business at $149.60 billion. GraceKennedy, Sagicor Group, Seprod, Jamaica Broilers Group, Guardian Holdings, Supreme Ventures, Scotia Group and Jamaica Producers Limited were the other largest companies by revenue earned. Caribbean Cement Limited and Carreras Limited were the other Jamaican companies listed with ordinary shares that had substantial revenue. The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) earns the most in revenue in Jamaica with US$1.16 billion or $174.49 billion, but its ordinary shares are not listed on the JSE.

With respect to net profit attributable to shareholders NCBFG earned the most with $27.32 billion, followed by its subsidiary Guardian Holdings with TT$1.10 billion ($24.57 billion). Massy Holdings, Sagicor Group, Scotia Group Jamaica, GraceKennedy, Caribbean Cement, PanJam, Barita Investments, and Jamaica Broilers earned the most net profit for 2022. JPS earned US$54.38 million ($8.15 billion).

NCBFG remains the only JSE-listed company with more than a trillion dollars in assets, with the financial conglomerate owning $2.08 trillion at the end of 2022. Guardian Holdings, JMMB Group, Scotia Group, Sagicor Group, GraceKennedy, Proven Group, Massy Holdings, Barita Investments, and Seprod are the other largest companies by total assets. Jamaica Broilers Group and PanJam make up the other Jamaican companies with the largest total assets. JPS had US$1.78 billion ($267.07 billion) in total assets at the end of 2022.

The JSE Index is down 5.98 per cent year to date at 334,626.31 points while the combined index is down 5.97 per cent year to date at 346,573.25 points.

“We believe that this environment provides an opportunity to pick up assets that can be considered as oversold based on their earnings trajectory, corporate projects, competitive position, balance sheet strength, and other factors. We see quite a bit of this on the main market right now. For context, we are seeing the normalisation of an anomaly, that being the BOJ policy rate quickly reversing from a record low of 0.5 per cent which came after a sustained downtrend in the last 5 years leading up to 2019/20,” said manager for strategic planning and analysis of Proven Wealth Julian Morrison.