Expect slow growth

Barbadians can expect slow economic growth as a result of Government’s restructuring programme, however, this should only last a few years.

This comment was made by Peter Arender, Chief Investment Officer at Fortress Fund Managers during a press briefing that took place at their office in Hincks Street yesterday afternoon.

“I think the economy here is going to be challenging for a little while, it’s a natural effect of what happens following structuring. There’s a cut of expenditure and raise of taxes and I think it’s now time to see what happens with the business activity here,” he said.

“I think we are going to have a couple years of slow economic growth as the economy rebuilds. Government spending has fallen, and taxes have increased and the fact is that economic growth is going to be slow. That’s just a fact and while they’re other, hopefully constructive things going on in the background that will lead to better growth down the road, that is not going to happen over night, and the things we are going through now are responsible for the growth that is going to come three years down the road, after a couple of years of fairly flat economic growth.”

Having said that, he believes that this should not be a surprise to Barbadians as we have, for the last couple of years had slow economic growth. So, he noted, with the additional stress that goes along with the fiscal adjustment from the Government and the recent restructuring, the “day to day economy here is unlikely to be different”.

Chris Callender, Portfolio Manager at Fortress noted that Fortress were pretty well diversified in their equity holdings outside of the country.

Callender went on to note that this did not affect their willingness to invest in companies in Barbados.

He explained that it all came down to the attractiveness of the opportunity, he noted that once the companies were listed and had good prospects, then they would look to invest.

Arender reminded that they were value investors, which meant that they would pay close attention to what the business was, if it had good prospects and a good balance sheet at a good price, then they would absolutely consider investing in the listed company.