Sagicor Group tweaks 2020 investment strategy because of COVID-19

• April 22 2020
• http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business-observer/sagicor-group-tweaks-2020-investment-strategy-because-of-covid-19-investing-in-infrastructure-no-longer-primary-focus-for-2020_192563

Sagicor Group Jamaica has revised its investment strategy for this year owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen the conglomerate becoming more conservative in its investment plans for 2020.

Sagicor President and CEO Chris Zacca, who made the disclosure in response to questions from the Jamaica Observer last week, announced that investment in infrastructure is no longer the primary investment focus for 2020, as detailed in its just-released 2019 annual report. In its 2020 outlook contained in its 2019 annual report, Sagicor reported, “the improvement in the Government of Jamaica's fiscal position has created space for higher levels of capital expenditure, mostly geared towards infrastructure”.

However, Zacca declared the 2020 outlook is “under review and evaluation. While we did say that the focus this year would be on infrastructure, ie real estate and hard assets to try to diversify our portfolio, but frankly at this time we would have to be circumspect” .

According to the Sagicor Jamaica boss, “clearly we would look for investment that would be extremely attractive rather than going ahead with all the plans that we had; in other words right now we will be much more conservative and ensure that we have capital that is more liquid”.

CONSERVATIVE INVESTMENT STRATEGY

He was quick to make the point that Sagicor is always looking for investments that will give a good return on equity and allow the company to grow, but emphasised that the focus now is more conservative and on assets that are more liquid and easily tradable.