Berger Paints Jamaica Limited is on a mission to grow its business at “2x” rate, in keeping with a group-wide mandate from its Trinidad and Tobago-based parent company ANSA McAL.

Christian Llanos, chairman of Berger Paints and head of the construction sector of the ANSA McAL Group of Companies, shared the goal in his presentation at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) held last Friday (May 10) at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel.

“The business is also on a trajectory for 2x growth – twice the size, twice the profitability…And that’s very important because if you want to stay around for a long time, you have to be growing, you have to be a part of growth” he told shareholders.

Llanos added that as part of ensuring continuity and sustainability of the 70-year-old Caribbean conglomerate, there has to be investments at all levels, including business processes, people and the environment.

In March, Berger Paints Jamaica officially opened its new trowel-on factory, for which the company invested J$123 million or TT$23 million. 

According to general manager Duwaine Williams, the investment in the plant will not only result in “optimisation” of the facility but also go some way to improve product innovation.

“For plant or warehouse infrastructure – the building, the machinery – as some of you have seen, we’ve invested last year J$130 million in delivering materially increased capacity to the tune of one million litres in installed capacity for trowel-on… We’ve added a lot of optimisation to the equipment, not just to have the team working hard, but also working smarter,” he shared at the AGM.

“And our portfolio, we’ve added innovative products. We have looked at how…we ensure that first-time quality is at the forefront. That when products are on the shelf, they’re clean, the prices are right, we have the right formats,” he added.

Already that investment is bearing fruit for Berger Paints. For the year ended December 31, 2024, the company increased its revenue by J$134 million, or four per cent, to reach J$3.5 billion. 

At the same time, Berger Paint’s focus on cost containment resulted in a 15 per cent reduction in cost of sales and a 24 per cent increase in gross profit. Operation expenses also realised cost savings due to reductions in travel expenses, intercompany charges, professional services, and rentals and other administrative costs.   

Net profit for the year was J151.8 million, a turnaround from a net loss of J$255.8 million in the year prior. With earnings per share at J$0.49, the company declared a dividend of J$0.125 per share.