WITH Fontana Limited nearly doubling its store count in the last five years, the retail company is betting on technology to maintain its growth momentum and optimise its larger footprint.

Fontana recently implemented the Pharmacy Information Management System (PIMS) software during its financial year which ended June 2025, to better centralise its pharmacy data and optimise its general pharmaceutical activities. The new system has allowed the company to better manage orders from its distributors and better communicate with customers.

This includes automated text messages to remind customers about repeat prescriptions, and supporting new features such as an expanded
WhatsApp service to be launched in the next one to two months.

“One of the biggest behind-the-scenes ones is the ability to really analyse the data better in terms of buying and customer habits instead of looking at it on a store-by-store [basis]. That also means leveraging our position with the suppliers with more data to back it up,” said Fontana Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Anne Chang at the company’s seventh annual general meeting (AGM) that was held at its Fairview, Montego Bay, location.

Fontana added the OrangeHR system in the last year to support the human resources team and better manage information regarding its wide range of employees across its 11 stores. This data-heavy focus comes nearly two years after Larren Peart, CEO of Bluedot (2022) Limited, was appointed to the company’s board of directors. Bluedot is a data analytics company in Kingston.

The focus on technology has benefited the company by allowing it to redirect customers within the Kingston and St Andrew area to other locations for goods which might be out of stock at one location. The new Portmore location has become an advantage for the company as it makes it a place to sell discounted inventory items from its other locations.

The CEO’s comments come against the backdrop of the company moving from six stores with 470 permanent employees in June 2023 to 11 stores with 612 employees in June 2025. The company added four new locations in March 2025 when it acquired the Monarch Pharmacy assets from Gerke Limited for a consideration $854.47 million.

While the former Monarch locations have not contributed to a full year of earnings, Chang noted that the acquisition has provided the company with new insights into the Kingston market and broadened the market interest in its business. She highlighted that there are some customers who the company had never interacted with prior to acquiring the Tropical Plaza location.

“It’s one thing that we rolled them in, but it’s going to take more than a year. It’s a new culture, it’s understanding the different customers — four locations in Kingston, the patterns are different. It’s still learning mode for us but we’re confident that our team understands it and that we will continue to roll them in and grow the revenue,” Chang expounded.

She added, “Having multiple locations in the Kingston market allows Fontana to be able to interact with our customers more easily and to see them more often.”

Fontana rebranded all the former Monarch locations and spent a considerable amount on redesigning the locations to the Fontana style, which included a total overhaul of the Sovereign Centre location in Kingston.

“When we took over the Monarch locations the benchmarks that we look at for those locations, we knew that it would take time for them to get more in line with our existing Fontana stores,” said Fontana Chief Operating Officer (COO) Raymond Therrien on the Monarch earnings contribution.

In Fontana’s last financial year, revenue increased 17 per cent to $9.52 billion but profit before tax (PBT) only improved by 10 per cent to $695.06 million due to higher operational expenses from the Fenty make-up launch and the integration activities for the Monarch stores. Net profit marginally improved to $591.56 million due to the company being subject to 50 per cent of the normal tax rate as a Jamaica Stock Exchange Junior Market-listed company.

“We have seen the success of beauty and we’re going to continue to really invest and grow. It’s a key driver for us,” Chang noted regarding the success of its beauty business which now has three Ora stores.

While the company enjoyed major wins in its 2025 financial year, it saw disruptions to its operations in its second quarter due to Hurricane Melissa. The company’s Fairview location was closed for two weeks due to physical damage while the Savanna-la-Mar location was closed for four to five days. Approximately two-thirds of staff at its Westmoreland location were impacted by the storm which saw some without electricity for nearly three months. Nearly 30 per cent of the company’s entire staff complement are at these two locations.

However, the CEO applauded her team members at both locations who showed up both days after the hurricane and had fewer working hours in the subsequent months. Chairman Kevin O’Brien Chang even noted that the company learnt from the event and introduced an operations manual for every location afterwards.

The company expects its earnings to improve in the subsequent months after operating profit dipped by a third to $252.21 million in the second quarter, with PBT down 39 per cent to $230.47 million.

Therrien remains confident in the company’s ability to take on new opportunities and satisfy customer interests based on the liquidity it currently holds. Apart from paying off the $350-million owed to Gerke for the Monarch acquisition, the company might pay off its $500-million bond rather than refinance it.

“We have a bond that’s due in December 2026. We would most likely at this point — because of our cash position — that we’d probably close that bond. There’s no need for us to refinance it; we have more than enough liquidity,” Therrien explained.

The Fontana CEO is also excited about the company’s push to add new experiences at each location to attract more customers. The company recently introduced a JPS hub at its main Portmore location, a move which mirrors the company’s Waterloo Road location which has several businesses at the property.

Chang even highlighted that the company continues to be approached by different developers to put a Fontana at their development based on the brand value proposition.

“It always has to make sense when these opportunities come up because we get one almost every week. Somebody has a new plaza that they want to put a Fontana in, but we also have to be very careful of cannibalising our market,” Chang closed.