Year two of Christopher Zacca’s tenure as president and CEO of Sagicor Group Jamaica brought record profit amid a restructuring of the accounting for resort investment Playa.

But just in case anyone thought otherwise, Zacca is declaring he is hungry for more and is looking to mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to drive needed growth in the banking and investment segments of the financial conglomerate.

“We are always looking for merger and acquisition opportunities in the banking space,” Zacca told the Financial Gleaner in an interview this week.

“We have to be strategic about where. We are not limiting our view to Jamaica, but there is a lot of room here in Jamaica,” he said, even while declining to signal whether any deals were in the pipeline.

In December, the listed company acquired 51 per cent of Travel Cash, a little-known microfinance company of the Guardsman Group, for just under $360 million. Having installed new management, Sagicor is in the process of renaming and rebranding the entity for a phased roll-out of microfinance and small business products in a few months’ time.

Cayman investment

This comes on the heels of a recent declaration that the company is pumping $2.6 billion to build out an investment banking outfit in the Cayman Islands.

Zacca says the Cayman investment vehicle, which awaits regulatory approval there, is intended to be a springboard for extending Sagicor’s investment banking reach throughout the Caribbean.

With its parent Sagicor Financial Corporation SFC, already heavily invested in insurance in markets like Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados and throughout the Eastern Caribbean, Sagicor Jamaica is concentrating on growing its banking and investment business in those markets.

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