Seprod new logistics centre going live April
Published:Friday | February 18, 2022 | 12:13 AM
Seprod Limited is getting ready to open its new 100,000 square feet logistics centre in two months.
The warehouse complex is a few paces to the eastern side of the company’s present headquarters at Felix Fox Boulevard, Kingston, and is set to be part of a larger campus scheduled for completion in late 2023. Following a “devastating fire” last October, Seprod CEO Richard Pandohie says the opening of the logistics centre after accelerated development is a plus.
“We go live in two months at the end of April. The company campus is about a year away but we’re definitely dealing with the logistics centre by April,” Pandohie told the Financial Gleaner.
Fire at Facey Merchandise’s distribution centre on October 9, 2021, wiped out over 86 per cent of the finished goods inventory, which also included the Christmas stocks at Seprod. As a result, Seprod company had to find temporary accommodation fast and speed up the clock on its $2.5-billion logistics centre.
Seprod leased a warehouse, double to the size of the 100,000 square feet lost, which became operational in November, a month after the Facey fire.
Seprod Chief Financial Officer Damian Dodd estimates that by the time the last shelf is put in place at Seprod’s new complex, the company would have spent around $2.2 billion, keeping within the $2.5-billion budget announced to shareholders last year.
With the coming on stream of the new centre, Pandohie says the company is taking a fresh look at its present temporary warehousing location at Newport West, a 200,000-square foot facility that was leased from the Port Authority of Jamaica. Seprod is considering retaining the lease, saying it may seek a special economic zone, or SEZ, designation for the facility and utilise it for the export side of the company’s logistics arrangements.
“We’re looking at it for other reasons. If, for example, it becomes an SEZ then it would fit nicely as a launching pad for our regional export efforts,” said Pandohie, while emphasising that Seprod will be in no rush to move out of the complex after the Felix Fox Boulevard centre is up and running.
The leased premises sit right next to the largest section of the Kington port, near Gordon Cay.
Last October’s fire burned 25 per cent off the company’s bottom line, leaving it at $2.16 billion for the 12 months ended December 2021, based on a preliminary report of its financial results.
Profit fell despite a 14 per cent yearly increase in revenue to $42.9 billion.
Pandohie said the big loss of stock in October was a serious blow to the fourth-quarter results.
“We’ve always been very direct with our stakeholders. It would have been our best quarter were it not for that huge fire. Christmas stocks were there, a vital cog in our operations, and the numbers speak for themselves,” he said.
Still, he added, the company is bullish on business this year.
“We’re feeling so much more re-energised. We were going along, doing well and then that happened. We have to comeback much better,” the Seprod boss said.
“Other companies are putting out great reports; we are hungry for that, if not a little jealous,” he said.