Rita Humphries-Lewin, chair of the Barita Group, plans to take her company public. - File

In an apparent move to consolidate its securities and investment business, Barita Investments Limited is rolling its unit trust company into its flagship brokerage operation, which has the distinction of the being Jamaica's first stockbroker.

The move comes ahead of a planned bid to raise capital for Rita Humphries-Lewin's 31-year-old company through listing on the Jamaica Stock Exchange.

But it also appears calculated to take advantage of the lifting of restrictions on unit trusts, expected to be announced soon by the securities watchdog, the Financial Services Commission (FSC).

Waiting for market rebound

The merger of the Charles Lewin-led Barita Unit Trusts Management Company Limited with parent, Barita Investments, is now complete, leaving only minor tidying up arrangements.

Humphries-Lewin said of the timetable for going public that it would happen once the market rebounds.

"We are putting the organisations together and are now in the process of transferring the shares held in the unit trust company for shares in the investment company," Humphries-Lewin, the company's chair, told the Financial Gleaner.

The unit trust company's 300 million shares with no par value, are being swapped, giving its shareholders a slice of Barita Investments instead.

Humphries-Lewin's stated reasons for the consolidation include creating more synergies, cutting costs and generally making the operation more efficient.

Administrative details

The merger is about a year in the making, with approval from the FSC having been granted a year ago.

Since that time, the company says it has been working out adminis-trative details of the merger with the regulator.

So far, the two companies' marketing functions, trading and investment, and human resource departments have been combined, with the accounting department still to be brought under the amalgamated entity.

Barita, says Lewin, the former unit trust boss, will continue to give guidance on training and invest-ment decisions but oversight of all functions will now be the responsibility of Barita Invest-ment's chief operations officer, Ian McNaughton.

Growth and expansion

Since its founding in 1977, Barita Investments has spawned three companies as part of its group, which until recently included Barita Portfolio Management Limited.

In the middle of last year, Barita Portfolio Management broke away from the group and rebranded as BPM Financial under the control of Peta-Rose and John Hall.

Barita Unit Trust is one of four unit trust fund managers operating in the Jamaica market, where combined funds under management amount to $11.9 billion at December 2008.

Under its unit trust business, Barita operates a $1 billion money market fund and a $500 million capital growth fund invested in equities and fixed income instruments.

Its investment portfolio has between $10 billion and $11 billion in funds under management.

The Barita chairman does not foresee any fallout in terms of staff cuts from the streamlining, but admitted that the current staff complement of 100, spread over offices on Kingston, Mandeville and Montego Bay is a reduction on previous numbers. The contraction has been achieved through attrition rather than staff displacement, according to Humphries-Lewin, who declined to give previous staff numbers.

"We will absorb everybody if we can expand the business," she said, adding that more effort will be put into growing the business in areas that show strong demand.

Humphries-Lewin expects that mutual funds and unit trusts are prospective growth areas and Barita is now awaiting the opening of these markets.

sabrina.gordon@gleanerjm.com