1 month ago
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Port operator Kingston Wharves Limited has acquired a substantial stake in port services company Cargo Handlers Limited, CHL, and has an option to purchase additional shares, but says its future plans don’t include a takeover of the Montego Bay-based business.
Kingston Wharves now owns 27 per cent of CHL, which it acquired from co-founder and director of CHL Jane Fray, but the deal it struck allows the Kingston-based port operator to acquire an additional 13 per cent interest, which, if exercised, would grow its stake to 40 per cent.
The acquisition puts Kingston Wharves among the top three shareholders in Cargo Handlers, but the company said it neither intends to acquire a majority stake in CHL nor seek to take control of it.
The cargo handling company was co-founded by late business icon Tony Hart, whose family remains in control of the business. CHL Executive Chairman Mark Hart directly holds 26.4 per cent of the shares, while the largest stake, amounting to 27.2 per cent of CHL, is held through North Star Investment Limited.
Kingston Wharves’ purchase of Fray’s holdings amounted to over 112.9 million units of the 416.25 million CHL shares in issue. It comprised the totality of Fray’s holdings, based on the market disclosure of top CHL shareholders up to the first quarter of this year.
The cost of the acquisition was not disclosed, but as of Monday, when the transaction was executed, those holdings were worth $1.1 billion.
Founded in 1981, Cargo Handlers’ business is stevedoring, baggage handling and provisioning for cruise vessels, but it also holds a 30 per cent minority stake in a cement distribution business, Buying House Cement Limited, in Montego Bay.
The sale of shares aligns with the company’s planned succession, under which founding shareholders and directors agreed that on their retirement, they would cooperate to identify partners and successors with the interest and capacity to continue to develop the enterprise – a disclosure attributed to Mark Hart in a joint statement with Kingston Wharves.
“CHL and its principals have a long history of partnerships that support the development of the Port of Montego Bay,” Hart said in the statement. “We are optimistic that our relationship with KWL will be no different. We have invited representatives of KWL to join our board and to participate in the governance and ongoing strategic development of CHL,” he said.
The CHL chairman also referenced partnerships with entities connected to both Jamaica Producers Group Limited, which recently merged its assets with PanJam Investment Limited to form Pan Jamaica Group Limited, and to Jamaica Producers’ Chairman, Charles Johnston.
“We recognise that JP has strong connections with KWL, and this adds to our confidence in the transaction and the prospects for working together,” Hart commented.
Kingston Wharves is now controlled by Pan Jamaica Group.
Jeffrey Hall, who is the chairman of Kingston Wharves and vice-chairman and CEO of Pan Jamaica Group, is joining CHL’s board. Another Kingston Wharves representative is also to take up a seat on CHL’s board, but that director is yet to be named.
Relative to Kingston Wharves, which turns over around $10 billion, Cargo Handlers is a tiny operation, with annual revenue at around half-billion dollars. However, CHL is also a highly profitable operation, with earnings of over $273 million in its past financial year ending September 2024, down from $322 million at year ending September 2023. Around a third of its profit in the past two years has come from its stake in Buying House.
Within the current fiscal year, its revenue has dipped from $273 million to $240 million at half-year ending March 2025, but its bottom line expanded, with half-year profit rising from $104 million to $131 million in the current period.
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