he Jamaican business headlines on the 8th of December 2010

seemed more relevant to National Geographic with talks of bulls and dol-phins being tossed around liberally. The menagerie that seemed to be on the tips of the tongues of business analysts was due to the fact that local attraction Dolphin Cove’s IPO was scheduled for that day. In a piranha-like feeding frenzy by local investors, the stock offer was gobbled up, leaving a single question to be posed to the head of stockbroker, PanCaribbean Financial Services.

“10 minutes, did you think it would have gone that fast?”

“We knew from the work we had done we had a winner. The day after we had the public forum, our Team knew that it would be very successful, because of the hard work that had gone in to the IPO”, said Donovan Perkins, CEO of PanCaribbean Financial Services, when Your Money asked if he had been sur-prised by the pace of the which the share offer for the popular attraction, Dolphin Cove had gone, “we got a lot of support from the Broker Commu-nity and we appreciated it.”

Mr. Perkins, a Calabar High School alum and Universities of South Florida and Virginia graduate, sat with Your Mon-ey eZine to share his thoughts on the heartening display that Dolphin Cove’s share offer for the Jamaica Junior Mar-ket had delivered. Dolphin Cove, an in-creasingly popular attraction, was start-ed in 2001 when the husband and wife

team of Stafford and Marilyn Burrowes transformed their family home into a three acre marine park with the attrac-tion of swimming with dolphins was the key attraction. After reinvesting profits into expanding the original Ocho Rios facility and opening a sister attraction in Negril, the Dolphin Cove team saw an IPO on the Junior Stock Exchange as a viable route and they approached Pan-Caribbean to guide them through the process.

We asked Mr. Perkins if he had always believed in the earning potential and longevity of Dolphin Cove, his response was enthusiastic. “Great question”, said

Mr. Perkins, “PanCaribbean has been with Dolphin Cove since its very incep-tion and at one time we were an eq-uity investor in the company. We’ve financed most of their expansion plans and enjoy an excellent relationship with their principals.

Analysts were optimistic about Dolphin Cove’s prospects on the market and the oversubscription of almost 300% of the 80 million share offer in less than 10 minutes proved that their optimism was not without substance. “Dolphin Cove is the only investment available

on the stock market that gives investors an opportunity to participate in one of the few bright spots of our economy”, reasoned the CEO, “Dolphin Cove has built a good business that generates more than 50% of its revenues from stopover tourists (which has grown consistently with the investments in ho-tel rooms) and the rest of its business driven by cruise shipping.

the dolphin cove ipoDonovan Perkins sPeaks about the success of

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“We knew from the work we had done we had a winner. The day after we had the public forum, our Team knew that it would be very successful, because of the hard work that had gone in to the IPO”

T

business loungebyAndreBurnett

Donovan Perkins

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Cruise shipping is about to go through a strong growth phase with the Falmouth pier, and the significant investment by RCL and the GOJ, as well as more and bigger cruise ships hitting the Caribbean waters.”

Mr. Perkins went on to say, “There are also benefits that Dolphin Cove derives from the Junior Market listing, which is 10 years of tax incentives. It has a very strong board and had also disclosed an attractive dividend policy. Finally, it just went through a major investment in Hanover, which strategically places it 30 minutes from the Montego Bay and Negril - two major tourist centers in Jamaica and the areas where most of the new hotel rooms have been built. I think investors took all of the above into consideration and that’s why it was largest ($620M), most heavily over-sub-scribed Junior Market offer (258%) with the broadest investor base (526 applica-tions).”

The success of Dolphin Cove does seem to bode well for other compa-nies that wish to use the Junior Stock Exchange as a method of fulfilling their potential and Mr. Perkins believes that any company that focuses on serving its

clients and marketing itself well, strives to continually improve its business, con-trols costs while continually seeking to strengthen its business relationship will do well on the market. “There are other companies that meet these criteria here in Jamaica, in different industries and we hope that PanCaribbean or other bro-kers will be able to convey to them the benefits and help them come to mar-ket”, said Mr. Perkins.

When asked about the Junior Jamaica Stock Exchange and the potential ben-efits to the Jamaican Private Sector and the economy on a whole, Mr. Perkins was confident that the Junior Market could provide a well needed boost. “Traditionally companies have relied on debt to expand. Cost of debt in Jamaica has been too high, and it has hurt our economy. The JSE, in promoting the Junior Market, recognized that Jamaica like most other economies, rely on small companies for employment growth and economic growth in their communities”, relates Mr. Perkins who said that he had once dreamed of becoming a pilot, “I think its possible to have 20 companies listed on the Junior Market by the end of 2012.”

Mr. Perkins also intimated that the next phase of our capital market should be an active bond market so that corporate borrowers can access better structured financing and provide investors with more investment choices. “Whether debt or equity, we need more mar-

ket mechanisms that make it easier to companies to raise financing, and for in-vestors to be able to buy or sell. The financial sector needs to foster the de-velopment of efficient markets so that Jamaica can grow”, he continued.

Along with his goal to achieve a 10 handicap in his golf game, Mr. Perkins assured Your Money that the next big IPO could be just around the corner. “Dolphin Cove reflects our ability to de-liver clients’ expectation” says the CEO, “I’m sure we’ll get a shot”.

“Traditionally companies have relied on debt to expand. Cost of debt in Jamaica has been too high, and it has hurt our economy.

byAndreBurnett

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business lounge

the dolphin cove ipoDonovan Perkins sPeaks about the success of

aving just endured the gruel-ing process of preparing and

presenting a marketing plan, I thought about the value of creating a plan as a necessary part of business and your personal life. Investing almost 120 hours in a simple project of preparing a plan may seem like time that could be best spent earning money; however, I posit that planning prepares you for even greater earnings. Critical to the marketing function is planning and while it is important to define the activities, it is also important to build flexibility.

Planning causes you to have a serious and structured look. One of the devices that we employed is the use of SWOT analysis, an acronym for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat. Now this is not only useful for your business, but it is also a useful exercise to assist in assessing your personal situ-ation for career growth as well. Detail-ing what is working, what is not and the things that are hindering success as well as the areas that you haven’t explored, offers the beginning of a road map.

Another way of getting to that struc-ture is determining a clear vision of what you want to achieve and working through the steps it is going to take to get there. One local marketing guru suggested that all brands must be able to be represented visually. So is your company a fat, older gentleman or a savvy lady who is up on all the trends? Don’t assume that either one of them is

more successful than the other. Deter-mining what your brand looks like now and what you want your brand to look like in a year, is another way to seeing the pathway to your future.

Now that you have taken a look at where you are, it becomes a little easier to start the process of determining what the period ahead is going to look like and how your success will be achieved. I have found it helpful to have some broad areas and then break them down into tactics. For example, increase sales, build my brand, and infiltrate new

markets. Then break them down into manageable objectives within the broad view. For infiltrate broad markets for example, you could have four tactics: 1-direct mail piece to chambers of commerce, 2-attend international trade show, 3-advertise in international trade magazine, 4-email campaign to interna-tional buyers.

Planning also gives you the benefit of being able to measure where you are against where you thought you would be. You can ‘plan’ to do this by setting out projections within your plans. For a business, it might look like this: 150 cases sold in May, 250 cases by June and 350 cases by December. A personal plan may include getting a mentor, com-pleting a professional course and pre-senting suggestions to your superiors.

So yes, planning is difficult and it is time-consuming but it can be a critical com-ponent to success.

...

columnist

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prioritize planning

Charmaine Wright

Wrighty saysH

Planning causes you to have a serious and structured look. One of the devices that we employed is the use of SWOT analysis, an acronym for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat.

“It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will”- Sam Cooke, 1964

hen Sam Cooke recorded this definitive single, advertis-

ers must have had a very clear idea of where to spend their advertising dollars. Newspapers and magazines were kings of the roost, television options were limited, so Primetime was indeed prime time and there was no reason to doubt that traditional (could it still be called traditional then?) media was not worth every red cent. As we progressed fur-ther into the digital age, and the internet became something that we all depended on (even if we weren’t sure how it really worked), advertisers began to ask for some amount of measurability so they could see the return on their investment. This led to more attention being paid to digital advertising, since more peo-ple were getting their news online and downloading their TV shows to watch whenever they wanted to. Primetime has become…all the time. Now at the end of 2010, with the advertising figures tallied and tabulated, it’s now evident that the change that’s been a long time coming might actually be here.

For the first time since we could define digital advertising, advertisers in the Unit-ed States have dedicated more money to online efforts than their print coun-terparts. According to a report by digital tracking website, eMarketer, advertisers increased their online spending by 13.9

per cent to US$25.8 billion, while they decreased their print newspaper ads by 8.2 per cent to US$22.78 billion. It is im-portant to note that while we automati-cally equate “newspaper” to print media, a fair percentage of the digital spend was commanded by the online counterparts of most newspapers, which probably makes it more accurate to always specify “print” in these statements.

“It’s something we’ve seen coming for a long time, but this is a tipping point,” Geoff Ramsey, chief executive officer at eMarketer, said in the statement. “The bad economy has actually accelerated the shift to digital advertising.” Online ads are typically seen as more reliable, he said, because their effectiveness can be measured, whereas print ads “are often difficult to tie to a measurable financial result.”

While this is another body blow to the midsection of the ageing prizefighter in the twilight of his career, it is important that marketers and advertisers not move their efforts to digital simply because that’s where the numbers point. It might seem that way, but there are indications that ad spending has not quite caught up

with consumer behaviour. People spend more time online because it is more in-teractive, therefore bringing the same mindset that the confines of print media created to the internet would actually be a step backwards. With the measur-ability that is provided by digital means, the time has come for advertisers to learn to speak with consumers because the means are finally there. Change can

be both for the better or for the worse, what’s necessary to understand is that it is constant.

special

yourmoney ezine

a definitive year for online advertising

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PARADIGM SHIFT 2010:

advertismentNow at the end of 2010, with the advertising figures tallied and tabulated it’s now evident that the change that’s been a long time coming might actually be here.

it’s been a year of changes for persons here in Jamaica and for us in the digital publishing business. We’ve had to re-strategize and refocus, but with the support and the feedback from our readers we think we have fared well. the entire Your Money eZine team would like to wish for you all the best of the season, and we hope that 2011 brings with it all the success it promises.

© 2010 eZines Limited. All Rights Reserved

Charmaine Wright