Richard Deane, Business Reporter

( L - R ) Leo Williams, Sinclair - File photos

Leo Williams has resigned as managing director of JMMB Securities Limited after seven years with the family- controlled JMMB brokerage, to focus on building his own investment firm, Williams and Associates Investments Limited, he told the Financial Gleaner.

Williams departed JMMB on April 30, but will continue to serve as JMMB Securities Limited's representative on the board of the Jamaica Stock Exchange until June.

At that time, Julian Mair, director for JMMB Securities is to replace him as representative.

Williams meantime is heavily engaged in his first big project - the development and introduction of a real estate investment trust (REIT) product to Jamaica, on which he has teamed up with Gary Sinclair, the former president of Dehring Bunting and Golding before that company's sale to Scotiabank.

New and existing products

"I am starting my own firm, investing in the markets of the Caribbean," said Williams. "We are looking to bring new and existing products to the market place."

REITs, or real estate securities backed by properties or mortgages that are held by the REIT manager, tend to be traded on major exchanges.

The product has never before been successfully introduced in Jamaica, though the investment scheme, CAREIF, had attempted to be the bridge.

"The first thing we are working on is a real estate investment trust that is going to be brought to the market in another couple weeks," said Williams. "The market has not seen that before," he said.

But all this is pending approval of the Companies Office of Jamaica, the Jamaican Stock Exchange and the Financial Services Commission.

The product Williams has developed is linked to 16 of the 55 units of the five-star Carlton Savannah, a Trinidadian hotel located in Port of Spain.

It's to be called Carlton Savannah REIT Limited, a company he said he has asked Sinclair to chair.

NCB capital markets lead broker

"What we have done is put together a way for people to buy into a luxury hotel in Trinidad and they can do it just as they buy a stock on the Jamaican stock exchange," Williams said.

Lead broker on the REIT offer, he added, will be NCB Capital Markets.

Sinclair told the Financial Gleaner that the operators of the Carlton Savannah hotel will give 65 per cent of the rent generated from the 16 units to Carlton Savannah REIT Limited, and that the funds would be remitted to an international business corporation in St Lucia.

"The money will then come to Jamaica and 95 per cent of that will be transferred as dividends to investors," Sinclair said.

Williams says that this new investment instrument will allow ordinary investors to have real estate within their portfolios without having to buy the property directly and suffer the consequences of illiquidity and high upfront costs.

"So you can have stocks, bonds and real estate in your portfolio in bite-size chunks," he said.

richard.deane@gleanerjm.com