Wisynco profit chopped one-fifth by slowdown

Increased costs and a general slowdown in consumer demand spliced into Wisynco Group Limited’s bottom line at year ending June, but the beverage manufacturer and consumer goods distributor says it has since seen signs of a turnaround.

Wisynco Chairman William Mahfood said the company faced increased costs, including for raw materials, but tried to hold prices steady and didn’t pass on all of it to customers.

“In addition to that, we’re capturing now a lot of expenses related to the new expansion, both operations, production and sales – the commercial side of the business – in anticipation of this new business which is now just rolling out,” Mahfood said.

At the top of the month, just before releasing its year-end results, Wisynco disclosed a new partnership and acquisition of a minority 30-per cent stake in Ringtail Holdings that will see it producing and distributing various alcoholic beverages handled by Select Brands Limited, a subsidiary of Ringtail. The deal with Ringtail, which was struck on July 25, resulted in the acquisition of the production assets of Ringtail Bottlers Limited by Wisynco.

The company also recently wrapped up a $7 billion expansion programme that saw the installation of three new production lines including Business Unit Three, BU3, which has given Wisynco the capability to produce beer along with canned versions of beverages like Boom energy drink and Bigga soft drinks.

Mahfood said the new production is feeding into exports and aiding in a recovery after about seven months of softness in the latter part of the fiscal year ended June.

Wisynco’s revenue hit a new high of $57.26 billion, outperforming the 2024 period by $3 billion or 5.55 per cent. Exports delivered $1.23 billion, up five per cent year on year, while domestic sales improved by 5.65 per cent to $55.35 billion.

Mahfood says the company has seen an uptick in business since the start of the company’s new financial year, which kicked off on July 1.

“Now, we’re very, very optimistic, that is to say, we’ve seen a turnaround since July,” he said in an interview with the Financial Gleaner.

“With that, I think there’s so much happening in the economy with tourism, investments in manufacturing and agriculture, etc, that I think the outlook is much more positive for the remainder of this fiscal year,” he said.

For the financial year ended June 2025, Wisynco’s net profit plunged by 19 per cent form $5.13 billion to $4.31 billion. However, Mahfood said the company expects an improvement in the current period, given the full activation of the new production capacity and new products coming off the assembly line.

“We’ll be launching products out of the brewery in the next matter of weeks. There’s also going to be a host of new products hitting the market in the next couple of weeks. We also added two new products in July, which is Coconut Growers from Trinidad and then Lucozade,” Mahfood said.

“Those two also will hit the top line and bottom line significantly.” Coconut Growers is coconut water sold in tins.

After funding its expansion programme, mostly from its reserves, Wisynco closed FY2025 with cash holdings of $6.8 billion, up by more than $2 billion relative to 2024.

“So, the cash at the end of the year was back up to a very healthy position,” the chairman said.

The deal with Ringtail will see Wisynco bottling Stone’s Ginger Wine and other alcoholic beverages from its base at Lakes Pen in St Catherine.

“We relocated all of the equipment and plant from the facilities on Spanish Town Road [in Kingston] and it’s now at the new facility that we just built. So, it’s going to be incorporated into the manufacturing there,” Mahfood said.

neville.graham@gleanerjm.com