Massy buying IGL for US$140m
Published:Friday 1:15 AM
Massy Holdings Limited has entered into an agreement with Caribbean Petroleum Marketing Limited to acquire full ownership of Jamaican gas company IGL Limited.
The business is held through IGL (St Lucia) IBC Limited, for which Massy is paying US$140.3 million, or the equivalent of $21.5 billion in Jamaican currency, for 100 per cent of the shares.
The transaction is subject to regulatory approval by the Fair Trading Commission.
Massy Group, an investment holding company based in Trinidad & Tobago, said the acquisition would grow its assets by 7.3 per cent and its profit by 7.1 per cent. Its asset totalled TT$12.6 billion at year ending September, while the company recorded profit of TT$858 million for the year.
Massy is already in the local gas products market through Massy Gas Products (Jamaica) Limited, distributor of the GasPro brand, a business that has been serving both the residential and commercial market since 2006 with LPG, butane, commercial fuels, industrial chemicals, commercial lubricants, marine fuels, lubrication, petroleum products and propane.
IGL Limited has operated in Jamaica for six decades as a lead distributor of cooking gas under the IGL brand. It’s also in the business of medical gases.
The acquisition comes months after IGL commissioned a new Pressure Swing Absorption Oxygen Plant at Ferry, St Catherine, a project valued at close to $100 million. IGL’s expansion is projected to increase inland or on-island production capacity of medical-grade oxygen by over 40 per cent, and also positions the company to be an exporter of medical-grade oxygen, the demand for which was accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier this year, IGL also indicated that it was planning a carbon dioxide plant that would capture CO2 from the atmosphere to produce food-grade carbon dioxide for local supply to soda and fizzy-drink makers.
In announcing the IGL acquisition on the Jamaica Stock Exchange, Massy said it anticipates a near 30 per cent bounce in pretax profit on its gas portfolio from the deal.
It’s the company’s second gas acquisition since November 28, when it struck a deal for Air Liquide Trinidad, for which it will pay at least US$51.5 million. That transaction is also subject to regulatory approval in Trinidad.