S. L. Horsford & Company Ltd.

What it is

Horsford is a highly diversified business involved in multiple trading, service and manufacturing activities through its various departments and subsidiary companies. Walk around Basseterre and you meet it everywhere: the IGA supermarket, the Nissan and Kia dealership, the Avis car-rental desk, the hardware yard, the fuel station.

The group trades in both St. Kitts and Nevis, with products and services spanning building materials, hardware, furniture, appliances, petroleum products, food, motor vehicles, insurance, shipping and car rentals.

Associate companies include St. Kitts Masonry Products Limited (50% owned) and Carib Brewery St.

Kitts and Nevis Limited (20% owned).

Who owns it

The company was founded in 1875 and incorporated in 1912; shares were first issued to the general public in 1990, converting it to a public company. The Kelsick family has controlled the business continuously across those generations and retains the dominant shareholding today.

Not published: the exact percentage held by the Kelsick family and the public free float are not disclosed in the ECSE company profile page, the March 2026 AGM notice, or the government press releases that are the primary public sources for this filing period. St.

Kitts & Nevis securities regulations under the Securities Act 2001 require material-information disclosure but do not prescribe a mandatory shareholder-register summary in annual reports; no such breakdown appeared in the ECSE-hosted filings reviewed.

Who runs it

W. Anthony Kelsick — BA, BComm, CPA, CA — serves as both Chairman and Managing Director, a combined role that concentrates strategic and day-to-day authority in one person, a common structure in founder-family companies.

He has held the position for decades, as documented in annual reports from 2006 through the 2026 AGM notice.

The board also includes Natalie Kelsick-Marshall, Andrew Kelsick and Jason Kelsick — three further Kelsick family members — alongside independent directors Mark A. Wilkin, Victor O.

Williams, Faron T. Lawrence and Christopher K.

Martin, with Bernard Malcolm serving as Secretary.

The money, in plain words

For its fiscal year ended 30 September 2025, Horsford posted record revenue of EC$186.7m (US$187 mn) and profit before tax of EC$18.62m (US$19 mn) — both the highest in the company’s 150-year history, driven by strong consumer activity and improved supply chains. That means for every dollar of sales it kept roughly 10 cents before tax — a pre-tax margin of ~10.0% (our calculation), healthy for a diversified trading and retail business operating in a small island economy.

The ECSE live price of XCD 2.70 (US$3)per share, applied to approximately 30.4 million shares outstanding (derived from historically published earnings-per-share figures), gives a market value of roughly XCD 82m / US$82m (our calculation) — meaning the market values the entire business at less than half a year’s sales, a modest multiple typical of closely held Caribbean conglomerates on thin-volume exchanges.

What it is doing now

The company’s 2023–2024 Annual Report was titled “150 Years Strong: Bridging Generations, Building the Future”, signalling that the sesquicentennial is being used as a strategic moment, not merely a celebration. The April 2026 AGM — the 35th as a public company — was called to receive the FY2025 accounts, which confirmed the record results.

As one of the two largest employers in the Federation alongside TDC Group, Horsford plays a central role in driving economic activity and job creation — a position that gives it unusual structural resilience but also ties its fortunes directly to the health of a single twin-island economy of roughly 50,000 people.

What to watch

• Succession and governance: With the Chairman/MD role held by one Kelsick and three other family members on the board, any leadership transition is the single biggest risk and opportunity for outside shareholders.
• After-tax profit disclosure: The company publishes pre-tax profit in press summaries; investors should track the full audited accounts (tabled at each April AGM on ecseonline.com) for the after-tax number and the dividend announcement.
• Volume and liquidity: SLH shares trade at XCD 2.70 (US$3)on the ECSE, but daily volumes on the exchange are thin; any meaningful position takes time to build or exit.
• Island-economy concentration: All revenue is generated in St. Kitts and Nevis; a hurricane, a tourism shock or a commodity-price spike in imported goods flows straight to the bottom line.
• Associate stakes: The 20% stake in Carib Brewery (St. Kitts and Nevis) Limited and 50% in St. Kitts Masonry Products are off-balance-sheet earnings contributors worth monitoring if either is restructured or sold.

This is news, not investment advice.