5 months ago
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Sygnus Real Estate Finance Limited, SRF, is aiming for investments outside of Jamaica as it gets ready for a new round of projects.
Chief Investment Officer of Sygnus Group Jason Morris says that now that the company has secured its footing in the Jamaican real estate investment market, Sygnus Real Estate is eyeing investments in other Caribbean countries. The company began operations in August 2019 and is wrapping up its first round of investments.
“It was important for us to start with Jamaica, learn Jamaica, master Jamaica. Now, we are moving out to other Caribbean territories. So we are evaluating multiple opportunities across about four or five different Caribbean countries,” Morris told shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting last Thursday.
Speaking later with the Financial Gleaner, Morris said the expansion into the Caribbean is expected to take better shape later in 2025.
“We expect that by the end of our financial year, at least, that those projects that are in the works should take shape and we would be in a better position to say more at that time,” he said.
The expansion of Sygnus Real Estate is not expected to result in it setting up physical operations in other jurisdictions. Instead, Morris expects the real estate financier to grow its footprint along lines similar to that of its immediate parent, Sygnus Credit Investments Limited, which has a substantial portion of its portfolio spread across the Caribbean.
“Recall that SRF was designed to invest right across all Caribbean territories. The only reason we did not do that when SRF started was because the opportunities that existed in Jamaica at that time were so huge that we had to concentrate our resources on that effort,” Morris said.
Sygnus Real Estate has been transitioning from its first round of investing, which saw the company closing on projects like Spanish/Penwoood, the new headquarters that it developed on behalf of heavy equipment company IMCA Jamaica; completed the nine-storey landmark building dubbed One Belmont in New Kingston; and financed a number of housing projects through REINs, or real estate investment notes.
The company also sold a number of properties, the most significant of which were located at numbers 56 and 58 Lady Musgrave Road along with the former French Embassy at Hillcrest Avenue in St Andrew.
Alongside the plan to expand into the Caribbean, Morris also announced to shareholders that as part of its second round of investing, Sygnus Real Estate would be pressing ahead with projects in Jamaica, inclusive of the development of a 55-acre industrial park at Lakes Pen, St Catherine, and a 14-acre beachfront property at Mammee Bay in St Ann.
Additionally, the company has committed $2.5 billion to real estate investment notes, he said.
For its financial year ending August 2024, Sygnus Real Estate generated 49 per cent more earnings to deliver $315.08 million in net profit, on the back of a 63 per cent improvement in net investment income $508.5 million.
For the September-November 2024 first quarter, the results were mostly negative, with Morris noting once again that the quarterly results “have been, since SRF’s inception … very lumpy”. For the period, Sygnus Real Estate recorded heavy losses, which nearly doubled from $133 million to $236 million.
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