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Supreme Ventures Group is putting US$100 million, or $16 billion in local currency, towards upgrades for Caymanas Park, the home of horse racing in Jamaica.
But SVL Group Executive Chairman Gary Peart said the commitment comes with a caveat – that SVREL must be allowed full ownership of the iconic park rather than the leasehold arrangements it has with the Caymanas Track Limited, a state-owned company that owns the racing facility.
SVREL, short for Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment Limited, is the subsidiary company under which SVL Group operates Caymanas Park.
Speaking to the Financial Gleaner on the sidelines of the company’s annual general meeting on Tuesday, Peart said four months ago, he wrote to the board of Caymanas Track Limited, which is headed by Chairman Danville Walker, to state the company’s position, but is yet to receive a response.
“It’s US$100 million in investments over 10 years; if we get the track, we’ll roll out that whole investment programme,” Peart said.
On Thursday, Walker told the Financial Gleaner that he had passed on SVL’s letter to the Ministry of Finance and was awaiting their guidance.
SVREL has a 30-year lease to operate Caymanas Park, with an option to renew for another 30 years. It is eight years into the lease since assuming the operations of the racing track in 2017.
SVREL says it has invested about $3 billion in rebranding and upgrading the park. Additionally, its lease payments for Caymanas run to US$330,000 per annum, SVREL Chairman Solomon Sharpe said.
Revenue from race track is around $10 billion, said Peart.
Asked about the company’s next move if it fails to secure ownership of Caymanas Park, Peart basically indicated that it would be business as usual, but there would be a rethink of the investments to be made.
“We have a lease, so we’ll continue to honour the lease, but the pace at which we invest is materially different because there’s a lease,” he said.
At the meeting on Tuesday, Peart reported to shareholders that Caymanas Park was proving to a drag on the group because of its mounting losses.
Striking a comparison, he noted that having invested US$20 million to enter the Ghana lottery market in 2023, in partnership with Game Park Limited, that operation was projected to turn a profit by July 2025, whereas Caymanas Park, with the same levels of investment, was reporting an estimated $400-million loss.
“I made the point that if they lose that money, we’re going to need to backtrack very seriously, because that $400 million is almost 20 cents in dividends,” Peart said.
“There are other countries that we may very well get into that’s going to require that kind of investment. So, you’re always deploying capital to your highest return. At this point in time, Caymanas gives me my lowest return; right now, it’s negative,” he said.
“I can say to you that if Ghana continues, in two years it’ll be bigger than Jamaica. The best I can say about Caymanas in its current state is if it continues, I may get to break-even, and I’ve invested $3 billion. The money I’ve spent to go into Ghana, which is now profitable, I’ve spent that on Caymanas and I’m still losing money,” Peart reiterated.
Peart told the Financial Gleaner that his wish is for Caymanas Park to return to its glory years, when the race track attracted big corporate involvement and the location in St Catherine was the playground of the rich.
“If you look at some past videos, there was a time when long stretches of the track had advertising billboards all along it. People would fly their private planes from Hanover or Westmoreland, park on the infield, play polo, and then fly back out to the west when they were done,” Peart said.
Meanwhile, following the departure of long-standing executive Xesus Johnston, who resigned as CEO of Supreme Ventures Gaming Limited with immediate effect, In January, the leadership at the gaming company has undergone big changes. Johnston’s departure came on the heels of cost-cutting separations at the company.
SVL also said goodbye to its head of marketing Kamal Powell, head of finance Anthony Litchmore, and head of human resources Sasha-Kay Burke. The company said it was a move to contain costs.
Despite an all-time high of $52.67 billion in total gaming income for financial year ended December 2024, SVL Group reported a 27 per cent dip in net profit to $1.78 billion. For the first quarter ended March 2025, SVL recorded gaming income of $13.8 billion and made a net profit of $515.6 million, representing a near 41 per cent decrease against the similar quarter in 2024.
Commenting on the changes at SVL since the start of the year, Peart told the Financial Gleaner that it was as much a move to become more efficient as freeing up space for other in-house talent to shine.
“We have a lot of bright people that if you don’t advance them, you run the risk of losing them, so that’s fundamentally what’s happening,” the SVL chairman said.
Prior to its divestment, Caymanas Park was run by Caymanas Track.
The 196-acre facility is bordered by Gregory Park to the west, abandoned train tracks to the north and the dense Waterford housing development to the east.
A former sugar estate, owned by Alexander Hamilton, the racetrack was designed by Bartholomew Vicens-Oliver and was officially opened in August 1959. Its ownership changed hands over the years, until 1975, when the Jamaican government took control of its operations.
Peart said that of the $10 billion in revenue, around $7 billion goes back to punters, and the other $3 billion goes into operating the 66-year-old plant.
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