EVEN as its reorganisation continues to take form, brokerage firm Barita Investments Limited said it remains bullish on plans to have bold and impactful growth as it goes after increased market share locally and in the region.

Focused on new revenue streams and having a greater reach in outside markets, the company’s management wants the business to become even more nimble as they build out more structures that will put it in a position to win.

Speaking at a quarterly investor briefing on Wednesday, newly appointed CEO of the more than 40-year-old company Ramon Small-Ferguson said the strategy, which sees activities moving along the same path, is to see an expansion of some portfolios and more value added.

“In terms of new revenue streams, these will travel along the routes with which we are already familiar. On the asset management side we are looking at potentially expanding that product line to appeal to a broader cross section of investors — retail and institutional. We want to be able to create portfolios that give exposures that are different from what is presently available, allowing for further diversification and for persons to experience value creation in a different way — and we are on the cusp of making some public headways to product development there,” he stated.

Further speaking to the company’s plan to tap into more markets, he pointed to areas of the business such as investment banking, which he believes can be used as a good launching pad to gain access without the company having to plant roots physically in order to do so.

“It’s our intention to push deeper into other markets in the region, not from a boots on the ground perspective. We do think that Jamaica’s sophistication with respect to our capital markets uniquely positions us to be a conduit to the region in general and to be a place where funding stacks can be curated ahead of it being distributed externally. I think we have some strong investment minds locally, and Barita wants to a play a significant role in all the funding that will happen in the region. We already have deals that we’ve done outside of Jamaica but we want to expand that, as this will also come as another source of revenues for us,” he told investors.

He added, “We do see some opportunities as well to really expand our market share in certain customer segments; we see ourselves as the people’s broker but we also want to expand our capabilities to scale up on the retail front and we will be relying on technology to help us with this. We also want to serve our institutional clients more completely as we get more of our products in the hands of the corporates we serve. We therefore want to expand those capabilities as well as those on the private wealth front — which is another segment in which we want to grow our market share.

A member of the Cornerstone group since 2018, Barita, which in its last financial year suffered a beat-down from the high-interest environment, saw much of its earnings depleted even as it managed to retain some profitability. Making a steady comeback in the last two quarters the company, at the end of the six-month period ended March 31, 2024, realised net profit of $1.9 billion backed by significantly improved net operating revenues of almost $5 billion.

Armed with an above-industry capital adequacy of 26 per cent and total assets of $134 billion the company believes it stands firm in navigating the challenges, encouraged by less restrictive monetary policies and increased activity in local and international markets.

“Despite the continuation of an operating environment plagued by several headwinds this quarter’s out-turns is much improved in most respects when compared to the last quarter, due to a resurgence in several traditional sources of revenues. Specifically, revenue of $3.65 billion earned in the quarter was a record quarterly out-turn and was $543 million, or 17 per cent, higher than the previous record performance in quarterly revenues of $3.1 billion during the same quarter of last year. The second quarter saw a material uplift in revenue contribution from our treasury brokerage business line (40 per cent of revenue) as well as the investment banking business line (nine per cent of revenue) relative to the corresponding period in the last financial year,” Chairman Mark Myers said of the results in the company’s latest unaudited financial report.

Managing director of Barita Unit Trusts Management Company Limited Dane Brodber, in further outlining plans to unlock greater efficiency across the group, said the continued execution of some cost-containment strategies, along with greater investment in technology by management, will form key parts of how the business evolves.

“Our aim is to get deep into our customer centricity, well beyond surface level, and we expect customers to see more rewards as our group evolves. Internally it’s really about efficiency [and] cost management so what we are really looking to do is to leverage technology, along with those best practices, to ensure that, as much as possible and from a group perspective, we are able to have the supporting processes and infrastructure that will allow us to materially reduce the cost of service delivery to our customers. Technology is to therefore to play an important role in our digital-first posture. We therefore expect that by the time our reorganisation is complete we can start to see the impact of some of these new structures as our systems and procedures evolve,” he said during the earnings call.