KINTYRE Holdings reported a net profit of $25.8 million for the first half of 2025, a significant improvement from a loss in the prior-year period. The result was primarily driven by growth at its digital advertising subsidiary, Visual Vibe, though aggressive reinvestment in the business has resulted in a lower cash position.

The unaudited financial statements show a dramatic turnaround from the $1.2 million loss recorded for the first six months of 2024. Operating profit saw an even steeper rise, increasing by 342 per cent to $29.8 million, up from $6.75 million a year earlier.

“Since we rebranded and repositioned from iCreate to Kintyre Holdings, it has opened up a lot of different opportunities for us to build the business,” Tyrone Wilson, chairman and CEO of Kintyre Holdings, told the
Jamaica Observer when asked to reflect on the performance led mainly by its Visual Vibe subsidiary.

Wilson was unequivocal about the source of the company’s newfound profitability. “Visual Vibe, for example, is our main income earner now,” he stated. The subsidiary, acquired in 2023 for US$4.3 million, has become Jamaica’s leading digital out-of-home advertising platform.

Its growth is being fuelled by strategic partnerships and product diversification. “We have a partnership with NGAP that has pretty much opened us up to three to five more locations that are exclusive to us,” Wilson said, adding that expansions into indoor advertising and digital advertising backpacks have helped “build an ecosystem for advertisers.”

This strategy is delivering consistent results. “Each week, we’re experiencing about a 2 per cent growth on sales. So, when you look on each month, it’s accumulatively about 8 per cent,” the CEO revealed.

Despite the strong profitability, the company’s balance sheet tells a story of aggressive reinvestment. While profit hit $25.8 million, cash resources stood at a mere $28,000 as of June 30, down from $3.9 million at the end of 2024.

Wilson explicitly confirmed the strategy behind the numbers. “In a fast-growing company, we don’t have the luxury, unfortunately, of trying to keep a kind of cash float right now because in a growth mode, we tend to spend heavily on expansion.”

He detailed that every dollar of profit is being funneled back into Visual Vibe to repair old screens, buy new panels, and fund new installations like the Manor Park, St Andrew, location. “The cash flow has enabled us to handle all our operational demands on a month-to-month basis. That is good,” Wilson assured.

To protect its primary asset, Kintyre has instituted strict governance rules. Wilson emphasized that Visual Vibe is “insulated from any cash demands from the other parts of the business”, meaning no dividends are paid out from it to the parent company for other uses and no inter-company loans are made.

Furthermore, the company has already raised dedicated capital to fuel this expansion. “I can’t disclose much [now], but we’ve raised some capital, and that capital will be used to acquire more screens. It will be used to build out Visual Vibe,” Wilson said, noting that the raised capital is “100 per cent for Visual Vibe alone”.

With Visual Vibe secured as the growth driver, Wilson said the company is strategically evaluating its other holdings. Its real estate arm, Parallel, has paused construction on projects to focus on valuations and “sale opportunities”, the proceeds of which could be deployed into other ventures.

Similarly, the company’s hospitality asset, The Sevens, is undergoing a complete rebrand. “We were just gonna renovate and keep Sevens but we decided, no, we’re gonna build out a completely different brand,” Wilson said, outlining a long-term plan to create a Jamaican-centric brand attractive to tourists and scalable internationally.