Susan Gordon, Business Reporter

Hayden Singh, managing director of Courts Jamaica Limited. - File

The Costa Rican family-owned company that acquired the Caribbean chain of Courts furniture stores nearly two years ago, is hoping to leverage Courts' strong brand, and big customer base, in the region among West Indian immigrants in New York City.

Unicomer USA, one of the private firms held by the Siman family, not only plans to open a Courts store in the Flatbush community of Brooklyn, but add a twist to the venture: customers will be able to pay for furniture at the New York store and have them collected at any of the Courts stores in the Caribbean, of which there are nearly 30 in Jamaica alone.

The company has not said how much it plans to invest in the venture.

"It (the Flatbush store) is going to be called Courts and it is really owned by the US affiliate, operating stores in Los Angles and Houston," said Hayden Sigh, the CEO of the Jamaican subsidiary.

Busted

Courts plc, which had subsidiaries in Jamaica and several islands in the English-speaking Caribbean, including Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, was a family-controlled but publicly traded UK company, until it went bust in 2006 - largely because of non-Caribbean operations.

A bankruptcy court ordered its sale. Courts' Caribbean operations, several of which were traded on regional exchanges - were bought by the Costa Rica's Siman business family, using a British Virgin Islands-registered vehicle called Regal Forest Holdings. The Simans took the stores private.

The Simans apparently believe, or hope, that the store that gave many middle and lower middle class West Indians their start with home furnishings and appliances, with its hire-purchase schemes, can excite a nostalgia in New York. And if the experiment works it is expected that it will seek to expand the brand elsewhere in the United States where there are significant populations of West Indians, although Singh would neither confirm nor deny such speculation.

"We are trying to see how it goes," he said.

Creative leader

It is perhaps significant, though, that Courts Jamaica is playing a major role in the start-up of the Flatbush store, helping to fashion its marketing and branding programmes.

Jamaica accounts for the largest segment of the English-speaking immigrant population in the New York and elsewhere in the United States, and Courts Jamaica was often considered a creative leader in the chain's regional promotional and marketing programmes.

Courts already has an online shopping service that makes it possible for persons abroad to buy products, furniture and appliances in the Caribbean.

"That has worked very well for us but we are pushing it forward by having a presence in the US," Singh said.

susan.gordon@gleanerjm.com

A Courts store in Montego Bay.