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The conglomerate GraceKennedy is the Caribbean’s foremost corporation, with its origins dating back to 1922 when it began as a harbour operator and trader.

Over recent decades, it has had very good leadership who have managed to grow  GraceKennedy’s capital base, product offerings and diversify its presence in different industries.

Carlton Alexander, Douglas Orane, and Don Wehby have all moved Grace Kennedy forward. Today it has a Market Cap of J$71 billion and a presence across continents.

Under Don Wehby’s tenure, Grace crossed the US$1 billion mark in revenue.

Now with Frank James at the helm, one wouldn’t bet against Grace not meeting its target for 2030, of being a US$2 billion in revenue conglomerate.

James has already got off to a good start with Grace, booking consolidated revenue for 2025 of J$178 billion.

Last year, GraceKennedy was impacted by the damage wrought by Hurricane Melissa but nevertheless put in a good performance.

The Group has a strong and talented management team, including Frank James, Steven Whittingham, Andrew Leo-Rhynie, Andrew Messado and Andrea Coy.  It continues to produce new product lines and acquire companies. It now holds 100 per cent of Catherine’s Peak.

Its logistics operations and manufacturing facilities are first class and it has effectively employed renewable energy. 

It is therefore inexplicable how its share price remains at around J$72 a share with a 52 week range of approximately $67 to $75  GraceKennedy should be at the very least a J$100 stock. It is undervalued. Why.?

Its Food Division goes from strength to strength, and its financial services Division is making gains. It’s a head scratcher to find a better conglomerate in the Caribbean.

In recent years, Grace has talked about listing on the NYSE and the LSE. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be a good performer on these renowned bourses. 

The question as to why GraceKennedy’s share price is not higher was posed at last week’s Investor Briefing.

Group CEO Frank James answered: “I fully agree, our share price should be higher. A key part of that is the current state of the market and this has translated into GraceKennedy’s share price performance. We do feel there is a lot more upside. The key to that is sharing the plans for the future of the Group and recognising our tremendous value that will translate to investors making decisions which will see the improvement in the share price.

“Also we have to hope for the general improvement of the stock market. We still have a stock market which is not as deep as we would like it to be. So  I think one will find when the overall market is down it will impact stock prices. We are not considering financial mechanisms such as a stock split at this time.”

Frank James is right. The Jamaican stock market is somewhat quixotic where historicals do not factor. By most metrics, GraceKennedy should be a performing blue chip.

In 2024, 41 per cent of its profits were earned outside of Jamaica. Last year, that went up to 51 per cent. This was the first time in the corporation’s history where the majority of GraceKennedy’s profits were derived from outside of  Jamaica.

James explained: “Keep in mind this is because of the one-off impact which was all in Jamaica. That was a $1.4 billion impact. So if we normalise for that, our profits earned outside of Jamaica was 45 per cent. Not over the 50 per cent mark on a normalised basis but still up from the 41 per we experienced in 2024. 

“This reflects our growth in international markets as well as our expansion into areas like insurance outside of Jamaica.”

GraceKennedy’s ability to export and earn foreign exchange makes it highly attractive, more so than many other companies listed on the  Jamaica Stock Exchange. As it now stands, 55.8 per cent of its total revenue comes from Jamaica, a growing 25.3 per cent from North America, 12.2 per cent from the UK and Europe and 6.7 per cent from the Caribbean and other countries. 

Its Jamaican operations are doing well and some may hold the view that GraceKennedy would be happy with a 50/50 earnings mix.  Its income from export earnings should be a primary driver of its share price.

“Revenues and profits are expected to come more from exports not because the Jamaican market is shrinking but because when one considers the size of the international market we are in and the opportunity for our products to cross over, not just to the Diaspora but to those who want multi-cultural experiences, then we expect profits and revenues from our international markets to be larger than our Jamaican market.

“It augurs well from the point of view of risk diversification. We saw the benefit of that in 2025 with Hurricane Melissa, nevertheless we still saw our international markets doing very well, “ said the GraceKennedy boss.

Addressing the question of GraceKennedy’s share price, Group CEO Andrew Messado commented: “ I would say it is a function of how market sentiment is now but I think if investors do the math, look at the book value as well as the continued profitability of the Group, they will recognise there is a lot of upside for GraceKennedy.”