J.P. Santos & Company Limited

What it is

J.P. Santos was incorporated as a limited liability company in 1910 and holds rental property, while its subsidiaries concentrate on distribution and retail trade in Guyana.

A subsidiary, JPS Trading Inc., owns three meat centres stocked with products from Bounty Farm Limited.

An associate company, Guyana Biscuit (Holdings) Ltd., focuses on investment of funds in long and short-term securities. Taken together, the group is a miniature conglomerate: a distribution and retail arm, a property portfolio, and a financial investment stake, all under one roof.

Who owns it

John Fernandes Ltd. is the single largest shareholder in J.P. Santos & Company, with a 91.25% stake — 17,342,421 shares out of 19,004,400 issued.

The remaining roughly 8.75% is held by around 200 individual shareholders, almost all with small positions, giving the public float a thin liquidity.

The board includes directors P.N. de Groot and B.A.

Fernandes, who retire by rotation but are eligible for re-election — a pattern that has recurred across many annual meetings, reflecting the deeply family-driven nature of governance. J.P.

Santos is itself a subsidiary of John Fernandes Ltd., which has held its dominant position since at least 2009.

Who runs it

The 2023 annual report names C.J. Fernandes as Chairman of the board, with fellow directors L.P.

Baker, P.N. de Groot, E.C.

Fernandes, and A.G. Fernandes.

The company is a subsidiary of John Fernandes Ltd., and the Fernandes family name dominates both the ownership register and the boardroom. No separate CEO title is disclosed in the annual report; the Chairman leads the group.

The company secretary is Roger Perreira, and the auditors are TSD Lal & Company, Chartered Accountants. The 146th Annual General Meeting was held in July 2024, making this one of Guyana’s longest-running corporate institutions.

The money, in plain words

In the year to 31 December 2023, the group took in G$7.47 billion (~US$35.9M) in revenue — up 4.7% from the year before — and kept G$331.7 million (~US$1.60M) of it as net profit after tax, a net profit margin of 4.4% (our calculation), modest but consistent for a distribution-and-retail business.

The share price has sat at a fixed G$20.00 (US$0.10) on the Guyana Stock Exchange for years, reflecting near-zero trading activity in a 91%-controlled stock. At that price, the entire company is valued at roughly G$380 million (~US$1.83M) in market capitalisation (our calculation) — less than one year’s net profit, which makes the price-to-earnings ratio of just 1.1 times look almost absurdly cheap on paper, though illiquidity explains much of the discount.

The most striking number, however, is the dividend yield of 45%: the company paid G$9.00 (US$0.04)per share in dividends in 2023 on a G$20.00 (US$0.10)share price — distributing G$171.0 million (~US$0.82M) to shareholders, or roughly half of annual profit. For the tiny public float, that income is substantial; for John Fernandes Ltd., it is a reliable cash return from a long-held asset.

What it is doing now

The GASCI trading data shows that from mid-June 2026, the exchange updated J.P. Santos’s earnings per share to G$10.36 (US$0.05) and dividends paid to G$8.00 (US$0.04) — indicating that the FY2025 annual accounts were filed around that time and show a decline in earnings from the G$17.46 (US$0.08)per share reported for FY2024.

The core business of running meat retail outlets and collecting property rents has remained unchanged in structure.

The company continues to lease its Water Street and Access Road premises from parent John Fernandes Ltd. at fixed US-dollar rents, which both anchors costs in foreign currency and underlines how tightly the group is integrated across related-party lines.

What to watch

• Earnings trend: The apparent drop in EPS from G$17.46 (US$0.08)to G$10.36 (US$0.05)between FY2024 and FY2025 (per GASCI) is significant and warrants reading the FY2025 annual report when the full GSC filing is available.
• Liquidity and free float: With 91.25% held by John Fernandes Ltd. and the share price frozen at G$20 (US$0.10)for years, this is not a market investors can easily enter or exit — price discovery is essentially absent.
• Related-party rents: The company pays its parent US-dollar leases every month; any tightening in Guyana’s foreign-exchange environment could affect group costs disproportionately.
• Guyana’s oil boom: Guyana’s economy is growing at one of the fastest rates on earth thanks to offshore oil. Whether that translates into higher consumer spending at JPS Trading’s retail outlets is the clearest growth lever on the table.

This is news, not investment advice.