4 months ago
22
Jamaica Stock Exchange Limited, JSE, will focus on Barbados to develop new revenue streams.
Leading this expansion will be JCSD Trustee Services Limited, a subsidiary of the JSE Group.
“We have registered a company in Barbados to provide trustee services. The operations for that company have not yet begun. We are currently going through the registration process with the Financial Services Commission in Barbados. Once that is completed, then the operations will begin,” said Andrea Kelly, the general manager of both JCSD Trustee Services and its direct parent Jamaica Central Securities Depository Limited, during the JSE annual general meeting held on Thursday at the exchange’s downtown Kingston offices.
The JSE earns about one-third of its revenue from its JCSD subsidiary. The expansion would allow the group to build up its annual profit which dipped from highs before the pandemic of more than half a billion dollars. Its annual profit has fallen by a fifth since then. [See insert]
“We are also looking at opportunities both in Barbados and the eastern Caribbean,” Kelly added.
JCSD started operations in 2008 and serves as a depository, trustee, and registrar for corporate bonds. “We act in the interest of bondholders,” Kelly added.
The expansion plan was announced during the JSE’s first regional conference in Guyana in October 2023. At the time, JSE Managing Director Marlene Street Forrest mentioned that the expansion would create a new revenue stream for the group while developing regional capital markets. Jamaica has the oldest and most active exchange in the English-speaking Caribbean.
The Barbados exchange was established in 1987 and reincorporated in its current form in 2001. In 2021, the Barbados Central Securities Depository launched its Custodian Trust Services Inc, which offers similar services to the JCSD.
From January to March 2024, the JSE Group reported revenues of $634 million, up from $530 million in the same period the previous year. Profits rose to $92.5 million from $87 million. During this period, JCSD Services’ revenue increased to 29.5 per cent of the group revenue, up from 23 per cent in the prior year.
Since late 2021, rising interest rates have made saving more attractive and investing riskier. In 2023, investors registered $48.5 billion worth of trades on the JSE, less than half the $112.5 billion achieved in 2019, a record year for the market that came just ahead of the pandemic-induced reset.
Throughout 2023, JSE Group generated total revenue of $2.2 billion, with a profit of $415 million. That’s more revenue than the $1.9 billion generated in 2019 but less profit than the $520 million in that year.
Its earnings were derived from JCSD operations, JCSD Trustee Services, fees charged for listing and other services, cess and fees for market trades, and the operation of the JSE eCampus.
The JSE also anticipates offering shorting of stocks by year-end. This service allows investors to profit when a stock falls in price. “We are ensuring that due diligence is exercised prior to us launching shorting. We have been working consistently to deliver on this. We will deliver before the end of the year,” said Street-Forest. She also noted that another delayed service, the trading of government securities, should occur by year-end.
____________
JSE Group annual profit:
$416 million in 2023
$503 million in 2022
$497 million in 2021
$407 million in 2020
$520 million in 2019
English (US) ·