By Kimberly Ramkhalawan
February 3, 2023
One of the Caribbean’s longest conglomerates turned a century old this week, Massy’s group of companies.
Gervase Warner, CEO of the group says the milestone not only celebrates achieving the company’s longevity but the road taken to get here, inclusive of the lessons learnt, successes, mistakes made to get there and how they have helped the company grow.
Warner remarks that “Our success over the last century, including our failures and learnings therefrom, gives us the confidence that our group can and is needed on the world stage to play our part in creating better for our people, our societies and for our planet”.
But the company is known in the length and breadth of the region, both Latin America and the Caribbean, with recent openings in the United States through the expansion of its supermarket line when it acquired Florida’s Rowe’s IGA supermarket chain. Its recent listing on the Jamaican Stock Exchange back in 2022 was viewed also as historic in nature, but not without some questions hanging over its true intentions and whether it had anything to do with accessing foreign exchange currency outside of Trinidad and Tobago. Something to which Warner responded as the company simply wanting to expand its investment portfolio reach.
And a diverse portfolio is definitely one the Massy Group over the years has attained. And while its name has been mostly synonymous with a grocery line and vehicle assembly plant, the name Massy was once co-joined with a rival turned business partner, Neal, and coming to be known popularly as Neal and Massy.
The story dates back to the early 1900s in Trinidad and Tobago, where Charles Massy managed to combine his savings and a loan to create an automobile dealership called Massy Limited, in 1924. However, hard times would fall on the company shortly after, due to the great depression and resulting in a forged business relation with Harry Neal, who sold vehicles under a General Motors franchise. From Chevrolet, Buick, Vauxhall, Opel and Bedford Trucks, Neal also carried a dealership for heavy equipment such Caterpillar. The merger would see Trinidad’s first full-service vehicle dealership. Eventually, Massy pushed for the establishment of a wholly owned subsidiary, Tracmac, Tractors and Machinery Ltd (Tracmac) to deal exclusively in agricultural and industrial machines, including the Caterpillar brand and Massey (later Massey-Ferguson) tractors.
The grocery chain, Hi-Lo Food Stores, though having been opened since the 1950s, its Neal and Massy takeover would only occur in April 1975 from Gordon Graves New, seeing the store expand to several outlets nationwide. This name became a household one across the country and remained so until 2014, when its parent company decided it was time to rebrand, removing the Neal from its title, and becoming solely Massy.
And while the conglomerate by this time had expanded into IT and Communication Solutions, Gas product suppliers, Energy industry, real estate holdings, including finance and insurance, it was only then would the Massy title be gradually seen as a sole entity operating in various sectors, showcasing just how vast this Caribbean conglomerate was at home and abroad.
Today the company boasts of setting up branches outside the western hemisphere, after having its roots started on the island of Trinidad, in the West Indies. Warner puts this into perspective of its employees now spanning over 100,000 in global territories, along with their families in their care, making an impact in charitable ways through its employees and operating with the “warmth of a Caribbean heart”.
The conglomerate’s CEO says he has seen this love and heart tapped into its Caribbean Culture, resulting in stronger engagement and leading to greater prosperity for all, while the group’s prosperity created through its foundations in Trinidad and Barbados, with the hopes of this heart being felt in the other territories soon. Highlighting one of its latest outreaches, the Nudge Social Enterprise, which supports thriving small businesses across three markets, Warner looks forward to seeing the expansion of these entrepreneurial businesses ten and twenty times its current size as supported through Massy in coming years.
He adds while the ambitions and goals are far reaching, what is valued the most, is being a people centered company, but with a Caribbean Heart.
To mark the occasion of one hundred years, he says they intend to role out more impact initiatives, with one called its Forces For Good Legacy Projects, where grants are supplied to eligible causes that impact communities wherever Massy operates.
He anticipates this to expand into a multi-year programme while the first candidates and first grants will be chosen within this centennial year.
To Warner, while its theme for the 100-year old celebrations “honouring our past, charting our future” looks at its red letter moments, it also means that the company recognizes that it is still on a journey rather than at its destination, with much more to do and be together, with many more stories to write.