Appleton Estate, St. Elizabeth, part of the holdings of the Lascelles deMercado Group, whose rums are a prime target under an estimated US$900 million offer from Trinidad's Angostura Limited for Lascelles. - File

Nothing was more controversial than the upshoot o investment schemes in 2007 and their run-in with the island's rich banks, but the year was also full of intrigue in boardrooms as big conglomerates and financial houses chased after new holdings and high-profile partnerships.

By Financial Gleaner estimates, the big deals that were announced topped US$4.3 billion (J$304 billion) - the majority of which are due for execution in 2008 - led by the sale of RBTT Financial Holdings' retail banking operation.

But it was the offer for Jamaica's Lascelles deMercado and Company by Angostura Limited, and the Barbados Shipping and Trading Company by rival bidders, that would spark numerous headlines, even though those big deals were smaller in value.

Growth

It also became clear during the year that the Caribbean was in-creasingly being seen by businesses as one operational space, with new moves to storm country markets via expansions and acquisitions.

Concomitantly, as companies explored the possibilities, several multinationals moved to take bigger positions in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, leading the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to conclude in October that regional economies remained small, but led the world in openness to external business, manifested in the ratio of exports and imports to GDP.

The larger worry remained the investment schemes whose un-regulated status made both Jamaican regulators and the IMF, a monitor of world financial systems, extremely worried about the implications for the local economy were they to fail.

lavern.clarke@gleanerjm.com