US Market
In the nearly eighteen months since Dwaine Williams has been leading Jamaica’s largest paint manufacturer, Berger, as its top boss, the marketing and distribution specialist has been resetting the business and recolouring its bottom line.
Coming off a year of record revenue and strong profits, Williams is already looking ahead to the next period, saying his focus is squarely on how to consistently deliver good performance over time.
In 2023, Berger Paints Jamaica made a rare and hefty loss – $218.42 million – its first yearly loss in three decades, a review of historic stock market records dating back to 1995 shows.
But last year, 2024, the paint company roared back with a profit of $105.68 million. It wasn’t its best performance, historically, but still stood out as the fifth time Berger Jamaica was booking yearly profit above $100 million over the span of the three decades. The paint maker previously did so in 2021, and from 2016 to 2018, a time within which its terminal accounting period switched from March to December.
The turnaround came amid investments in new equipment, retail network expansion, and product innovation. In recent times, Berger has introduced four-head fillers, throwing out single-head fillers to cut throughput time on its production lines; opened three specialist paint stores, one each in Kingston, May Pen and Montego Bay; and more than doubled the range of colours for its most popular product.