By Laura Tanna, Contributor
Dream team business partners Brian 'Ribbie' Chung (left) and Christopher Cargill. - File Photos
I'M NOT a club goer, never have been, but after spending an hour and a quarter with nightclub owners Christopher Cargill and Brian Chung I am definitely going to check out their newest venture, which they hope to open in New Kingston in mid-July when the Summer Games take place.
Their latest brainchild, whose name they won't disclose, is to have the equivalent of four clubs in one location, each on a different level, with different music and ambience, including one level as an upscale cocktail bar. I wouldn't be going only because the concept is so intriguing. No, I'd give them a chance because rarely does one meet two young men who seem so decent, so honest in their answers and solid in their friendship. Making other people comfortable in their presence is just a part of their success story.
Recipients of the March 2002 Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) Employment Creation Award for 925-Jerk, "In recognition of your significant investment which has led to creation of sustainable employment opportunities," these two businessmen in their early 40s now employ over 300 people and, with the opening of the new venture, a US$1 million investment according to Chung, their total employment will be 400. Each of their companies is separate, but all the accounting is done at their head office off Constant Spring Road, St. Andrew. Their jointly owned businesses are eclectic. Says Chung: "We don't look at who is in power or the political part of it. We look at business, at investments and when we see an opportunity, we always go for it."
Nitetime Promotions runs their nightclubs, Cactus and Asylum. Victory Investments, with their partner Marlon Creary, has the license to operate Digicel Tropical Plaza, of which Cargill says: "We're really just sales agents. We have no control over the policies." Island Stitches, an embroidery company originally started by Cargill as B.C. Apparel, is run by his brother, Andrew, and among other things, stitches company logos onto employees' T-shirts. Laserworks Ltd., situated at Blaise Industrial Park, built at a cost of some US$2 million, has partners Janet Davidson and David Kelly and is, in Chung's words: "The only CD manufacturing plant in Jamaica and the English-speaking Caribbean."
DISCS
Cargill adds: "In Puerto Rico there is a MicroSoft plant. They only make discs for MicroSoft. We are the only contract manufacturing CD replicating plant in the Caribbean." Says Chung: "From gospel to reggae-" "We've probably made over 300 titles," Cargill finishes Chung's sentence, continuing: "We get the inserts printed at Mapco. We import the plastic boxes and then do the final assembly." Chung adds: "Our prices are very competitive to the First World so we encourage local producers." Laserworks Ltd. also makes vinyl records at forty-five speed, and is looking into getting equipment to do thirty-three and a third. "It's a long term investment," says Chung. Finally, 925 Jerk, the name and telephone number of their jerk chicken and pork delivery service to anywhere in the Corporate area, which got started in November 23, 2001 with an investment of J$20 million, grew out of their October 2001 exit from JamRock Sports Bar and Grill. Now that's an interesting story.
BRAIN CHILD
Chung says: "JamRock was the brain child of Chris and myself, the whole idea." Cargill explains: "Brian and I were to find half of the money. Chris and Ronnie (Chin Loy) were to find the other half and Frank (Chin Loy) was bringing in his expertise and equipment so that is how we split it a third for Brian and myself, a third for Chris and Ronnie and a third for Frank. Ronnie is the eldest. Ronnie and Frank are brothers. Frank was returning home from Vancouver, Canada where he had a Jamaican-style restaurant, Calypso Foods, and they used to do pastries. We formed a company with 900 shares with a hundred and fifty shares for Brian, myself, Chris and Ronnie and 300 shares for Frank."
Cargill says: "My wife is daughter to Ronnie Chin Loy and sister to Chris Chin Loy so Chris and Frank were the ones responsible for the day-to-day operations of JamRock. Brian and I were never happy with how the day-to-day functions were carried out, and we had monthly meetings at which we voiced our dissatisfaction. Also, we gave them solutions to the problems that we observed. In the last year, when sales started to dip from an average of eight or eight and a half million to five or six million, we decided that we had to draw the line."
So, to preserve family peace and avoid any ongoing conflict, Cargill and Chung sold their share of JamRock to the Caribbean Equity Partners (CEP) for the money they'd put in to start the business. They profess not to know any of the details of how CEP structured their deal with the Chin Loys or how CEP now has a majority share in JamRock. Cargill and Chung say that the only thing they lost was the time they invested in JamRock and both agree that they consider it a learning experience.
Cargill is the finance man who gets into office at 8:30 a.m. and deals with paper work while Chung is a people and public relations person who goes to Asylum every night and gets into office at 10:30. Friends since they were teenagers who merged their resources to create a mobile disco known as 'Spinners', which they now acknowledge was a "hobby" and not a "moneymaking machine," and both of Chinese ancestry, they had distinctly different upbringings. Chris' father, Peter Cargill, was a partner in Central Protective Services when security services were just starting, but he died in his early forties of a heart attack. Chris, born in 1962, was only number six or seven children. A nephew of writer Morris Cargill, Chris says: "We really didn't grow up associating with Uncle Morris and that side of the family." Chris' mother ran the Cremo milk depot downtown while raising him, his sister and brother. He considers her the greatest influence on his life: "At the time when you're sacrificing, you're saying "Why are my friends able to do that and we're not?" But you get older and look back and say: "you were getting a lot under the circumstances that she had to deal with!"
He attended Wolmers and Campion College, where he got his nickname "Gypsy" from a teacher because of his propensity for migrating over to the other side of the classroom to sit with friends. Then he migrated for real to Florida in 1978 where he lived with an aunt in Ft. Lauderdale for two years, then took a place of his own in Kendall. He got a job at the Pantry Pride grocery store, first packing shelves and leaving after a year and a half as night manager. Cargill became a certified auto mechanic, worked in an auto body shop, and when his friend Peter Martin moved to Florida in '79/80, was able to continue his involvement in music when they started a Spinners in Miami. Martin is now Vice President of sales for World Courier Inc. in Boston, while Cargill chose to return to Jamaica in 1982, working for Road Runner and United Estates before opening LCP Auto Centre and then the apparel company.
FAMILY TREE
Chung, born in 1959, attended Kingston College and then St. Steven's College. He has a half sister and brother from his parent's previous relationships, and a sister Thalia, who works for him. Somewhere he acquired the nickname 'Ribbie' because of his ribs. In the seventies, when his father gave him the option of university or joining his snack food company, Polyfoods, Chung opted for the latter: "I was working at Jungle, the first one in the area opening up the factory from seven in the morning on Elgin Road, where Calvary Cemetery is, in a very volatile political area." He remembers: "You have the Chinese Benevolent Society where the Chinese will go and meet and greet in that community of the Chinese segment. I was more with the ethnic people." He turned to buying cars, fixing them up, selling them for a profit. In 1983 his father and a partner opened Honeycomb Village, a waterfront restaurant in Ocho Rios, and eventually Chung started back with the disco parties there on long holiday weekends, re-establishing his schooldays music partnership with Cargill. Chung has married, separated and now lives with the mother of his two sons. The person who most inspired him growing up and "the one person right now who I would like to emulate would be Butch Stewart. Cause he speaks. You see how he has developed over the years. How he has built his chain. He doesn't hold back any punches because whatever party is in power, he will speak his mind. I think it's for the betterment of the country," declares Chung.
Both men agree that they were brought up not only with a strong work ethic, but: "Chris and I, we have come from families that have taught us-" "Good morals, good upbringing," Cargill completes Chung's thought. And I believe them when they explain how they finally became business partners in 1993 with the purchase of Cactus nightclub. "We bought the going business from the then owner (Vivian Blake). We met him as Andrew Williams. I mean, we didn't know who this guy was. The business was advertised. We went, we looked at it, Chris and I. We looked at each other and said, in Portmore we have 200,000 people. We must can do something for all these people. Even ten per cent of these people, even one per cent of these people must want to go out. The interior was very old. We saw where we could refurbish and come with something first world in Portmore." They say they used money earned from the sale of their own businesses, plus money loaned to them by their families to buy the business for $300,000. As for the building, Cargill explains: "the landlord at the time was willing for us to assume the existing lease, which would have given us another eight years. We thought we were safe." Chung continues: "After we were in there fixing it up, we heard that the landlord who owned the plaza was in problems with the bank. That was the time of the financial meltdown and he had borrowed heavily on the property." According to Chung, only when another company paid towards the purchase of the downstairs property were they able to work out a payment plan with the landlord based on cash flow from the club. Cargill says of their phenomenal success: "Most people shunned the people who we catered to at Cactus when we'd just started. Nobody wanted to cater to that crowd. We embraced the patrons. We gave them value for their money in a surrounding that let them feel like a customer and not a commodity. We let all of our patrons feel a family environment."
Chung believes another secret to their success was that nightclubs have a two or three year lifetime and by recreating Cactus three times they were able to extend its life to eight years. They closed the club in March 2001, still owned the real estate, and are watching the economy to see whether they will refurbish and create a new club there. Cargill admits: "We have not been successful in every business venture that Brian and I have ever done. I would consider JamRock to be a failure. So what we do is in any business you're going to have ups and downs. When you have the downs, you have to find a way to get it up. We try to stay ahead of the problems before they do occur. That would be a big part of the contribution to our success."
ASYLUM
They still operate the Asylum Nightclub on Knutsford Blvd which they opened with great success in 1997. Cargill explains: "Cactus was the catalyst for where we are today. Asylum is the mainstay, the core or number one business of all the businesses that we've done." Chung states emphatically: "All the money that we have earned from the businesses, especially the nightclubs, we have invested it back into all the businesses that we have started." Cargill concurs: "Every dollar that we've made-" "We've put back in our businesses," Chung completes the sentence, adding: "Our philosophy right now is that we're young. We have ideas and we were not fortunate to have a business handed down to us. We have worked hard. We have ploughed back all of our money into the business. You asked if we don't own a home in Jamaica or anywhere else in the world. No! Not that we do not want to, but we figure that the money that it would take to buy a home, we can invest that money and turn it 100 fold."
"You have a great deal of belief in this country," I commented. Simultaneously Cargill and Chung replied: "Have to. If we don't believe in this country, who will?" Asked if there were any government policies they would wish to see changed, Cargill answered: "The high interest rate regime, that hurts Jamaica now, more than the crime. We are still young and you still have youngsters behind us who have a lot of ideas and have no access to capital, no access to loans, so if we could access money and provide jobs for these Jamaicans out there, we wouldn't have a crime problem. We have a crime problem now because people have no jobs, they have no money. No human will sit down and starve to death. It's all in our natures that if we are destitute, we're going to do things that we never would even dream of doing. I think that one policy can make a big impact on the economy."
