Duprey

Lawrence Duprey has taken a seat on the board of Lascelles deMercado, a Jamaican company soon to be absorbed into his CL Financial Group as a subsidiary.

The announcement made via a stock market filing, came at the same time that Lascelles released its second quarter results, reporting weaker profits to the Jamaica Stock Exchange.

CL's spirits company, Angostura Limited, has already paid out US$308 million or US$4.50 per share to Lascelles shareholders on the all-cash deal, which is to close within three years contingent on a final payout of another US$4.50 to US$6.15 per share.

The balance of the offer is due by January 28, 2011.

Lascelles group managing director William McConnell has said nothing would change at the company until the deal is fully consummated.

Synergise

But the idea is to synergise its spirits business, especially Wray and Nephew Limited, with that of Angostura.

Duprey, the chairman of Angostura and CL Financial and a self-styled 'economic natioanlist', was made a director of Lascelles on April 30, a decision taken at a board meeting that day.

A vacancy was created last December with the passing of Richard Ashenheim.

George Ashenheim remains the chairman.

Lascelles, a profitable blue chip company listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange, made more than $2.6 billion in after-tax profit in 2007.

But its performance year to date has fallen off relative to last year, with its second quarter results of $242 million at March 31, reflecting a 31 per cent drop in net profit from $350 million in the March 2007 period.

Its six-month results were also off, but only marginally, down from $1.2 billion to $1.18 billion in the current period - the result of significantly higher production costs and bigger administration, selling and marketing spend.

The company remains highly liquid with $9 billion of working capital, and is now capitalised at $24 billion, up by $4 billion from a year ago.

business@gleanerjm.com