Susan Gordon, Business Reporter
Left: Damian Obiglio's new Japanese bosses are also based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States Right: Gary Osbourne remains head of the power company's finance division. - file photos
Although under new ownership since August 8, the Jamaica Public Ser-vices Company (JPS) has retained most of its executive structure and reporting structure.
JPS President and Chief Executive Officer Damian Obiglio, still reports to Atlanta, but now he answers to Tomofumi Fukuda, the president and CEO of Marubeni Caribbean Power Holdings Inc.
Marubeni acquired Mirant's 80 per cent stake in JPS earlier this year.
Two JPS senior vice-presidents - Senior Vice-President of Adminis-tration, Stephen Gillis, and Vice-President of Commercial Services Swee Chau - resigned prior to the transition.
However, Gary Osborne remains with JPS as chief financial officer while Mo Majeed formerly of Mirant, was re-employed to Marubeni Caribbean Holdings as chief operating officer of asset management.
Keepers
JPS has also kept Katherine Francis as its general counsel and corporate secretary, Thomas Dorsey as senior vice-president of customers operation and Frank Ray as director of external affairs.
Mirant which is divesting all its overseas businesses, announced in April that it was selling its Caribbean holdings to Marubeni for US$1.082 billion.
The deal included related debt of approximately $350 million, power purchase obligations of approximately $153 million and estimated working capital at closing.
After subtracting those values, Marubeni Caribbean Holdings - which is based in Atlanta, Georgia - paid a total contract price of US$580 million (J$39.7 billion) for the Caribbean assets.
Jamaica was said to account for US$800 million of the gross value, and Mirant is reported to have netted about US$352 million in cash from selling JPS.
Marubeni was founded in 1858 as one of Japan's international trading houses, and today has operations in 74 countries across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.
susan.gordon@gleanerjm.com
