The Massy Group, distribution, retail, gas products and automobile and machine holdings company, celebrated its 101st year in February.

The company, established on February 1, 1923, has grown over the past century to be an international conglomerate and a central figure in TT, and the Caribbean as a whole.

Now, with the company facing a new direction for the next century and new leadership in the form of CEO David Affonso, Massy is well on its way to reaching its main goal of expanding to becoming a $25 billion company by the year 2030.

Speaking to Affonso and chief financial officer James McLetchie at their office at BHP Building at Invaders Bay last Friday, Business Day was told its focus for the next hundred years is to expand in a responsible manner.

[caption id="attachment_1104046" align="alignnone" width="683"] Massy Group CFO James McLetchie. - Photo courtesy Massy Group[/caption]

The first goal in Massy’s plans for expansion is to pay dividends to shareholders, particularly the 600,000 shareholders who are pensioners.

“We are simply the stewards of their money,” McLetchie said. “They invested their shares and a lot of them are institutional investors. That is an important role to play to make sure that those dividends are paid.”

From Hi-Lo bags to Massy bags

In 2014 Massy re-branded from the Neal and Massy Group to Massy, as part of a comprehensive re-branding exercise, with the aim of unifying all subsidiary companies and to create a strong corporate identity. The re-brand included a change in the group’s aesthetics, including the introduction of the now well-known Massy logo, which replaced iconic insignia such as the Hi-Lo logos on its grocery bags.

“The Massy re-branding was to make it a little clearer the size and scope of the company, so the people buying shares would understand that Massy is not just Massy Motors or Massy Stores,” Affonso said. “Massy is into a lot of businesses and we have a significant footprint across the Caribbean. I think that, by and large, it worked, because people got a sense that Massy is pretty large.”

Massy – which trades as Massy Holdings Ltd – employs more than 13,000 people, operates in eight countries, including the US, Colombia and several countries in the Caribbean and is the holding company for over 75 businesses. In its latest consolidated financial statements for the six months of the year ending June 30, the company boasted of a revenue of over $11 billion revenue, with a profit after tax of $465 million. Affonso said 70 per cent of the company’s business now comes from outside TT.

Long ago, the company was considered a conglomerate, with several companies such as Nealco, Neal and Massy and Hi-Lo stores, which were not necessarily connected but operated under one umbrella.

[caption id="attachment_1103541" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Massy Stores head office on Wrightson Road, Port of Spain. - File Photo by Roger Jacob[/caption]

“Each small company on its own doesn’t have strength, but when you say all of them are owned by Massy, th