Jamaican business mogul Gassan Azan is on the cusp of inking an acquisition deal for Hucor Holding NV, the representative of fast food franchises Subway, Pizza Hut, and KFC in Curaçao.

The US multimillion-dollar acquisition is being done through Azan’s investment vehicle Alfabet Holdings Inc and is expected to be completed sometime this year, he told the Jamaica Observer last Thursday.

It will also give Azan control of novelty supply entities Diamond’s Party and Diamond’s Home, as well as import company Antillean Pet Containers.

Azan, the founder and chairman of MegaMart and Bashco in Jamaica, already has significant investments in Curaçao, having acquired ownership of the Van den Tweel supermarket chain there as well as in Aruba and Bonaire, known as the ABC Islands.

That 100 per cent purchase took effect on May 1, 2018 and Azan had told the Observer at the time that Sygnus Capital, at which he is a non-executive director, was the lead advisor for the negotiations and lead arranger for financing the acquisition made by Alfabet Holdings.

The impending acquisition, which has been in negotiation stage for “just over a year”, will make Azan, who is also a director of the Observer, one of the largest employers in the ABC Islands as it will add some 400 employees to the more then 700 staff in the supermarket chain.

It also opens another chapter in his expansion and diversification thrust, coming just over four years after he and his partners ventured into the agriculture sector in 2019 with Jamagro Tech Farms in Lakes Pen, St Catherine — a state-of-the-art agro/industrial development on 400 acres of land scheduled to be rolled out over several phases.

That project includes 25 acres of greenhouses, 50 acres of orchards and open fields in the first instance. It will enhance Jamaica’s involvement in the global ready meals market, which was estimated at US$219.69 billion in 2018.

Azan founded Bashco Trading Company Limited in 1990 and nine years later opened MegaMart, the Caribbean’s first wholesale membership club, in Portmore, St Catherine.

Over the years he has grown both businesses to 12 Bashco stores in nine parishes and expanded MegaMart to Portmore, Montego Bay, and Mandeville.

Azan is also CEO of Sizzling Slots.