A S Bryden & Sons Holdings Limited will become the latest company to list on the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) in two weeks as it plans to list by introduction to the market.

The Trinidadian holding company published its abridged statement on Monday which is a precursor to a company listing by introduction. As a result, A S Bryden is likely to list by November 13 on the Main Market of the JSE and become the first listing on that market in 2023. The only other two listings on the JSE in 2023 were related to Junior Market companies which listed by an initial public offering.

A S Bryden’s listing of its ordinary and preference shares is being sponsored by NCB Capital Markets Limited. In a listing by introduction, no new shares are issued, and no new capital is raised by the company, but its shares would now have an established market value. This route was used by Guardian Holdings Limited (GHL) and Massy Holdings Limited which listed via this route in May 2021 and January 2022. The other ways a company can list include an offer for sale, prospectus issue, offer by tender and placing.

Whereas GHL and Massy were already listed on the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange (TTSE), investors will have no idea as to what price A S Bryden will list on the JSE. GHL listed on the JSE at $582.48 which was relative to its TT$25.51 price while Massy listed at $2,463.08 relative to its TT$106 price. GHL never had a stock split while Massy had a stock split which brought its share price to $97.63. Massy has since become the largest company on the JSE with a $187.96-billion market capitalisation and makes up 11.85 per cent of the $1.59 trillion in JSE Index.

Seprod had intended to list A.S. Bryden on both the JSE and TTSE in 2022 with the Eastern Caribbean listing to come at a later date.

Seprod acquired 60 per cent of A S Bryden in June 2022 for $7.11 billion which was funded between a mixture of debt and preference shares. A S Bryden’s issued share capital was 47.884 million ordinary shares with 5.884 million ordinary shares held as treasury shares and 20,403,000 preference shares held by the selling shareholders. However, 4.33 million shares newly issued ordinary shares were given to the owners of Micon Holdings Limited in November 2022 to acquire the business. This pushed down Seprod’s stake to 54 per cent with the Jamaican company owning 25,055,333 ordinary shares of A S Bryden.

Seprod’s audited financials noted the Micon acquisition was worth $2.35 billion which translated to $541.46 or TT$23.66 per A S Bryden share. Michael Subratie, Caribprop Limited and Curmudgeon Limited sold a collective 1,236,009 ordinary shares in October 2022 at US$4.37/TT$30.59 in an offer for sale worth US$5.40 million.

According to the abridged document, A S Bryden’s ordinary share count was 1,389,683,010 ordinary shares. Based on A S Bryden’s issued share count of 52,216,767 shares (46,332,767 with treasury shares) at the end of 2022, this implies a stock split of 26.61 to 1 share unit prior to listing.

A S Bryden earned TT$1.72 billion in revenue and TT$96.62 million in consolidated net profit, TT$89.82 million being attributable to shareholders for its 2022 financial year which ended on March 31. A.S Bryden’s total assets stood at TT$1.38 billion with equity attributable to shareholders at TT$736.92 million, inclusive of retained earnings of TT$627.57 million. TT$78.26 million was declared as a dividend payment to shareholders.

However, A S Bryden’s financial year was changed to December 31 and its auditors changed from Ernst and Young to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) following the acquisition. Since then, A S Bryden delivered TT$1.18 billion in revenue for the first six months of 2023 with net profit of TT$56.37 million. Total assets closed June at TT$1.71 billion with total liabilities and equity at TT$1.13 billion and $576.21 million, respectively.

Under the assumption earnings double to TT$112.73 million, this would translate to an earnings per share of TT$0.0811 or J$1.85 based on a $22.86594 FX rate. If A S Bryden listed at the manufacturing sector average of 13.03 or main market average of 12.49 times, A S Bryden would be listing between $23.11 – $24.11 per share. A S Bryden’s dividend policy is to pay up to 40 per cent of net profit available for distribution and has since paid a dividend in December 2022 and June 2023.

A S Bryden’s board includes Paul B Scott, Melanie Subratie, Nicholas Scott, Richard Pandohie, Michael Conyers, Brian Wynter, and Geoffrey Gordon. Subratie, Gordon and Wynter are members of the audit committee.