VM Investment Limited (VMIL) is making 2023 its year of acquisitions as it continues to steadily grow its investment portfolio.

“A key area of focus for this business will be, and will continue to be, acquisitions and private equity as a subset of acquisitions,” announced Rezworth Burchenson, CEO of VM Wealth Management Limited.

He made the disclosure during VM Investment Limited’s general meeting on Friday at its corporate office in Kingston. Burchenson recalled VM’s 10-year action plan, which includes tapping into the pocket of value in the Caribbean and Latin America, beginning with its acquisition of Trinidad-based Republic Funds Incorporated (RFI).

“It’s going to be our toehold in the southern Caribbean. We believe that there’s obviously lots of value there, we’re some ways away from obtaining regulatory approval. We believe that’s going to come sometime this year. At that point in time, we will boast that we’re a regional entity as compared to a Jamaican entity,” Burchenson said confidently.

VM Investments entered into an agreement with Republic Bank (Barbados) Limited in 2021, which was sealed in 2022.

“We believe that the RFI [Republic Funds Incorporated] acquisition will enhance our asset management prowess, competence in the southern Caribbean. We believe the RFI will be one of the future acquisitions being made in that space,” said Burchenson.

In 2019, VMIL invested in Carilend which started in Barbados and has since expanded to Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

VMIL has also turned its attention to private equity investments and, according to Burchenson, the platform is coming together nicely. From building on investment with Coldbush Organics last year, VMIL also invested in Home Choice manufacturing and put in place a fund called JASMEF in conjunction with stakeholders in London called Actus.

“That fund, we believe, will be another pillar in providing much-needed equity capital to small and medium-sized enterprises to allow them to grow, to allow them to list and to contribute meaningfully to the Jamaican landscape,” he revealed.

In accelerating the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises, the VM Group raised $1.7 billion at the beginning of this year, which Burchenson says will be a key feature of the business moving forward.

At the start of the year, VMIL invested in Kingston Properties, one of Jamaica’s leading real estate investment trusts, which also has investments in the Cayman and the United States and has over 500,000 square feet of space under its management.

“That again [land space] we will leverage to enhance our real estate strategy, coupling with our existing real estate unit trust portfolio,” Burchenson said.

In the meantime, despite the high-interest rate environment affecting its capital market and unit trust businesses, the VM team delivered in 2022 with primary revenues being generated from bond trading, equity trading, corporate finance and asset management, which accounted for just over $400 million.

“This is from our unit trust portfolio where we manage unit trust funds as well as private portfolios on behalf of customers,” explained Brian Frazer, VM Group’s deputy chief executive officer (CEO) of Victoria Mutual Investments Limited, while giving an overview of the company’s financial performance.

According to Frazer, even though the performance was flat year over year, based on the impact of high-interest rates on the business, asset management shows a level of stability as a source of income, as such, one of the main focuses of VMIL will be to grow its asset management business.

Corporate finance business produced about $538 million last year, a 60 per cent increase; bond trading deliver over $618 million, a 13 per cent growth and equity trading generated $70 million, a 33 per cent increase.

As the VM Group focus on expanding its investment, so too will it be expanding digitally to allow clients to make investments easily. According to the assistant vice-president – business operations for the VM Building Society, Karlene Waugh, becoming digital will be a key pillar as client, IPO, and core banking systems will continue to enhance.

“We’re going to increase the transaction capabilities on VM Wealth IPO edge. We are improving standing order processing, we will be enhancing our website, we will be enhancing transactions monitoring, processing messaging and alerts,” said Waugh. She further added, “We’ll be creating more opportunities for wealth as we expand and digitise and automate.”

Its IPO platform, ‘IPO edge,’ was tested last year with Dolla Financial Services Limited, which Burchenson touted was a success, making the platform one of the best IPO platforms in Jamaica.

“When we launched our IPO platform we could only do IPOs,” said Burchenson proudly as he reminisced on the development of the platform. “Karlene took it to APOs, then we did rights, now we’re at preference shares and I won’t say what’s to come,” bragged Burchenson.

Enhancing the productivity of the sales infrastructure was also mentioned by Burchenson as another key pillar in the business.

“Whether it be by specialised training, additional partnerships or leveraging new business models to get our revenue going, we believe that there are opportunities there and we’ll continue to exploit them in 2023 and beyond,” he said.