Susan Smith, Staff ReporterA PART of the West Indies Home Contractors Limited's thrust to tighten up its resources and operations is to strategically place itself for any regional opportunities that could turn up after completing its local projects.
Speaking with Mr. Peter Melhado, president of WIHCON, earlier this week, he said the
company has looked at a few opportunities in the Caribbean region with regards to expansion.
"We are focusing on our four projects and are perfecting how we do business on our domestic market, then maybe in a year's time we will look to regional opportunities," he declared.
However, an informed source told the Financial Gleaner that the real reason behind the scaling down of activities is that the company is in a cash bind. In an article previously carried by Wednesday Business on November 10, 2004, Mr. Joseph M. Matalon, chairman and chief executive officer of the ICD group and executive chairman of the West Indies Home Contractors Limited, (WIHCON) revealed that WIHCON restructured its business portfolio in order to achieve a 25 per cent cut in operational costs.
Some redundancies were made, several senior managers resigned and a major site office in Greater Portmore closed down, over a month ago. However, Mr. Melhado has refuted speculation that the company is having financial difficulties. "We are doing fine," he said, admitting that there have been moments of financial constraints.
"The truth is we've just had to put our costs in line with our pockets," he said. "We have a lot of things working on and at times cash is tight," he added.
At the moment, WIHCON has four major projects outstanding and has put up its construction equipment for sale earlier this week. The outstanding projects include: the Aviary Phase 2, the Western School project, the Rosedale Housing Scheme in Montego Bay and the dredging of the Rio Cobre River.
Mr. Roberto Clivio, managing director of WIHCON, said the Aviary Phase II housing project was off to a late start because "the company was waiting on a build-up of volume commitments from our purchasers."
The Western School project is also said to be behind schedule because the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture is still negotiating land for the project.
In responding to a question posed by the Financial Gleaner on whether WIHCON would need to wait for one whole year before taking on regional projects, Mr. Melhado said, "If the right opportunity comes along now, we would not ignore it." He said the two regions in the Caribbean where the prospects look promising for 2005-2006 are Antigua and Barbados. "Antigua has a new government and Barbados' housing market looks interesting," says Mr. Melhado. Though WIHCON is a Jamaican-based company it has already done some regional work in Trinidad and Barbados where it built houses in the 1980s.
