S. L. Horsford & Company Ltd

—

What it is

S. L.

Horsford and Company Limited is a diversified trading company involved in multiple trading, service and manufacturing activities through its various operating departments, subsidiary companies and associated companies in both St. Kitts and Nevis.

Think of it as the economic spine of two small islands: if it lands in a St. Kitts port, gets eaten, built with, or driven off a lot, there is a good chance Horsford’s handled it.

Products and services include building materials, hardware, furniture, appliances, petroleum products, food, cars, trucks, insurance, shipping, car rentals, hire purchase and consumer credit; key brands represented include IGA, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, Norwegian Cruise Line, Windstar, Guardian Trust, Avis Rent-A-Car and Trinidad Cement Ltd. Active subsidiaries include Ocean Cold Storage (St. Kitts) Limited, S.

L. Horsford Finance Co.

Limited, S. L.

Horsford Nevis Ltd., and S. L.

Horsford Shipping Ltd.; associate companies include St. Kitts Masonry Products Limited (50% owned), Carib Brewery (St.

Kitts and Nevis) Limited (20% owned), and St. Kitts Developments Limited (30% owned).

—

Who owns it

Founded in 1875, the company was incorporated in 1912; shares to the general public were first issued in 1990, marking its conversion to a public company. The Kelsick family — descendants of the Horsford line — controls the boardroom and executive suite, with W.

Anthony Kelsick serving as both Chairman and Managing Director alongside family members Andrew Kelsick and Natalie Kelsick-Marshall as Executive Directors.

Not published: the ECSRC issuer register (ecsrc.com) lists a total of 60,296,860 ordinary shares but does not disclose the percentage held by any individual substantial shareholder, and no ownership breakdown appears in the publicly accessible ECSE filings or the company’s investor-relations page. Under the Eastern Caribbean Securities Act, issuers are required to disclose the names and holdings of substantial shareholders (generally those holding 5% or more) in their annual ECSRC-K filing; the filed documents do not present those percentages in an open, machine-readable format at this time.

—

Who runs it

The board of S. L.

Horsford and Company Limited is chaired by W. Anthony Kelsick (BA, B.Comm, CA, CPA), who also serves as Managing Director; Executive Directors are Natalie Kelsick and Andrew Kelsick; Bernard Malcolm (MBA) serves as Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary.

The dual role of Chairman and Managing Director held by Anthony Kelsick concentrates strategic and operational authority in one person — common for Caribbean family companies of this vintage, though it is a governance structure some institutional investors watch carefully.

R. Heather James serves as Group Management Accountant, overseeing systems, procedures and controls for the group’s assets in St.

Kitts and Nevis. The rest of the board includes independent directors Mark Wilkin, Victor Williams, Faron Lawrence, Christopher Martin and Jason Kelsick — giving the family a clear majority of seats.

—

The money, in plain words

Detailed annual financial statements for FY2024 (year ended 30 September 2024) are published as a PDF on the company’s site and on the ECSE — titled “150 Years Strong: Bridging Generations, Building the Future” — but the file could not be parsed at time of writing. For FY2025 (year ended 30 September 2025), a public shareholder communication cited profit before tax of EC$18.6 million (~US$18.6 m at the fixed XCD:USD parity); this is the most recent profit figure available in any open source, though the audited full accounts have not yet been published in accessible form.

Not published: audited revenue, net profit, total assets, net margin, return on equity and price-to-earnings for FY2023 and FY2024 are not available in any open, machine-readable primary source — not on the ECSE listing page (ecseonline.com/slh/), not on the ECSRC issuer record (ecsrc.com, issuer #89), and not on the company’s investor-relations page (horsfords.com/investor-relations/financial-information/), which lists annual reports only through FY2018. The ECSE/ECSRC regulatory framework requires listed issuers to file annual ECSRC-K reports with audited financials, but those PDFs are not rendering in searchable form.

Historically, the group has been consistently profitable: it has traded profitably since its incorporation.

—

What it is doing now

The 2023–2024 annual report carries the theme “150 Years Strong,” and the company marked its sesquicentennial year — a moment management used to reframe the group’s identity to a new generation. The company describes itself as a highly diversified business establishment founded in 1875.

The most recent material financial disclosure — profit before tax of EC$18.6 m (~US$18.6 m) for FY2025 — suggests the core business remains solidly in profit, even against the backdrop of higher global input costs and Caribbean post-pandemic tourism normalisation. No major acquisition, divestiture or leadership change has been announced in any accessible public filing at the time of writing.

—

What to watch

• Disclosure quality. The gap between what regulations require and what investors can actually read online is the single biggest risk for outside shareholders. If the ECSE and ECSRC move to fully digital, parseable filings, the stock’s visibility — and potentially its liquidity — could improve materially.
• Family succession. Three Kelsicks sit on the board. How the next generation divides ownership and management authority will shape strategy for the next decade.
• Caribbean cost pressures. A company this dependent on imports — food, vehicles, building materials, fuel — is exposed to global freight rates and the US dollar cost of goods; the XCD’s fixed peg to the USD limits currency risk but not price risk.
• Associate investments. The 20% stake in Carib Brewery and 50% in St. Kitts Masonry Products are meaningful bets on local manufacturing; any change in those businesses would move Horsford’s earnings.

—

This is news, not investment advice.