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Chris Levy will take over from his father Robert as president of the Jamaica Broilers Group, a $10 billion company by assets.
Dionne Rose, Business Reporter
Heir apparent Christopher Levy has been learning the business literally from the ground up since he was a teenager, and now it is his turn to run the five-decade-old Jamaica Broilers Group, over which his father Robert Levy has majority control and has imprinted his personality as a strong and steady operation, but flexible enough to adjust to changing circumstances.
In three months, Christopher will take over as president and chief executive officer of the expanded poultry group, which now has energy thrown in, but is planning to maintain the course his father has set for the company that was founded back in 1958.
"I do not anticipate any significant change in direction of the company at this time," the younger Levy told the Financial Gleaner.
Christopher has for years been working alongside his father at the company as board director, currently senior vice-president in charge of operations and head of the nascent and highly lucrative energy company, JB Ethanol Limited.
Indeed, that relationship will continue in some form, but this time Christopher will be answerable to the elder Levy in a different capacity. At 68, Robert is to assume a new role as chairman of Jamaica Broilers' board.
Youngest son
"Mr R Levy will be the chairman of the company and his input into the direction will continue," said Christopher via email.
His brother Stephen Levy, Robert's youngest son, is expected to take over the operations of the ethanol plant after Christopher assumes the top job.
Stephen is in charge of Jamaica Aquaculture.
Robert and current chairman R Danny Williams, 74, will both demit their current offices in February as the company transitions to the new generation of leadership.
A vote to declare Williams as director emeritus happened this week - a process requiring amendments to the company's rules to recognise life-long directorships.
Father Levy in a Financial Gleaner interview appeared tickled by the fact that his oldest son would be continuing his legacy, recalling with a chuckle how Christopher was initiated into the company.
"He started from he was 15 years old," he said. "And his first jobs were to go out and catch chickens at the farmer's place. So, Christopher has been right through the full operation, all aspects of it."
But Christopher really proved he was ready to take over when he spearheaded JB Ethanol, a 16-month operation which contributed $6 billion or 67 per cent of new revenue generated in the year ended May 3.
"He earned a level of respect from all of us (when) he put the ethanol operations in place, on time and on budget, and it has been very successful for us," Levy said. "We have every reason to believe that it will continue to be successful."
Hiccups
The energy company has had its hiccups, however. A month or two into start up, Christopher flew to Paris to negotiate a settlement with JB Ethanol's supplier of wet ethanol who had defaulted on the contract. The company had not named the supplier, but it had at the time a 50 million gallon contract with Bauche Energy. Levy secured US$1.45 million in compensation or 75 per cent of the loss the company had projected.
But the problems with that contract led to another big problem in Jamaica for the company whose senior executives were summonsed before regulators to explain certain sale of shares by senior executives around the time the company reported to the market that it anticipated losses because of the contract default.
Both the Jamaica Stock Exchange and Financial Services Commission cleared the poultry company.
Since then, no other problems have emerged.
New capital
The company will pump US$15 million (J$1.1 billion) of new capital into expanding the plant at Port Esquivel, whose rated capacity is now at 60-million-gallon capacity.
Broiler's energy division also includes a cogeneration plant that Christopher said is also to be expanded to add another 10 megawatts of electricity by early next year.
"We want to make sure we have an agreement with JPS before we actually put it in place," said Levy.
Jamaica Public Service Company has a monoploy on power supply, but buys from independent suppliers to add capacity to the national grid.
Otherwise, there are no other plans for expansion in the group, at least for now, said Christopher.
"With the current financial situation world-wide and the challenging times projected for Jamaica and the world as a whole, we feel that it is important to be in a mode of tight fiscal management, pru-dence in our decisions and working to improve our profitability. As to any expansion projects at this time, our main focus is the returns from ethanol," the president-in-waiting told the Financial Gleaner.
Profitable company
He takes over a company that is financially sound and profitable whose business covers poultry, livestock, animal feeds, aqua-culture, and energy.
For the year ended May 3, 2008, group turnover rose to J$20.4 billion from J$11.5 billion, on the back of higher than anticipated ethanol sales.
Net profit rose from half a billion dollars to $740 million.
Robert attributes this growth to the combined effort of team members, some of whom has been with the company 15 years and over.
"I feel that the team that has been around me has been the most rewarding thing, it is great when you have no internal politics in the operations," he told the Financial Gleaner. "So many companies run with serious challenges in the company ... we have been through a period of time that has been so exciting to come to work because you are not facing those personal challenges."
The senior team comprises In Parsard as head of finance; Don Patterson, accountant; Peter DePass, company secretary; Conley Salmon and David Mair, marketing; Claudette Cooke, human resources; and Leon Headley, procurement.
The senior Levy is a man of faith committed to Christian principles, and those beliefs have helped shape his management style.
His son now says that the team Robert built is possibly one of his best legacies, a comment that also gives some insight into how the younger Levy intends to govern the company he inherits.
"I think Mr Levy has made several significant contributions over the years. He has built a tremendous team that leads and manages JBGL; I am fortunate to inherit this momentum," said Christopher.
"Also, he has built a very strong culture based on biblical principles that form the foundation of our decision-making. He has also created tremendous wealth for many Jamaicans over the years."
dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com
SOURCE: Financial Gleaner, Friday, November 28, 2008
