Mayberry bleeds $750m in third quarter as stocks slide
Published:Friday | December 5, 2025 | 12:07 AM
Mayberry Group Limited, a provider of investment banking and wealth management services, posted a net loss of $751.4 million for the September third quarter, compared to a profit of $145 million in the same period a year earlier.
“This was primarily attributable to continued volatility in investment valuations,” said CEO Gary Peart in the company’s report to shareholders.
The losses reflected falling stock prices even before the passage of Hurricane Melissa, which has since pushed the market even lower.
The performance of Mayberry Group’s subsidiaries was mixed. Widebase delivered $271 million in profit, Mayberry Investments recorded a net loss of $142 million, and Mayberry Jamaican Equities, which holds the bulk of the group’s local stock portfolio, reported a $4-billion loss.
A year earlier, all three subsidiaries posted losses. Importantly, most of the current losses were unrealised, stemming from declines in stock values rather than cash outflows.
Mayberry remains exposed to the local stock market, which peaked at 534,000 points in 2019 before sliding to about 325,000 points in March 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since then, the market has struggled to regain momentum, with each year marked by shocks that dampened investor sentiment. In response to inflationary pressures related to the pandemic, the Bank of Jamaica gradually raised its benchmark policy rate from 0.5 per cent in 2021 to 7.0 per cent, a fourteenfold increase. The rate has since eased to 5.75 per cent, but still makes fixed-income instruments attractive relative to stocks.
“While the group’s results are affected by adverse market valuation movements, it remains well capitalised with strong liquidity,” the company stated.
Group capital stood at $12.9 billion at September 2025, down 18 per cent from a year earlier. Mayberry reported that its capital to risk-weighted asset ratio was 15.6 per cent – lower than 17.7 per cent a year earlier but above the regulatory minimum of 10 per cent.
Over nine months, January to September, Mayberry Group reported a net loss to shareholders of $2.4 billion, compared to a loss of $560.9 million in the prior year. Management attributed the deterioration to net unrealised losses of $3.9 billion on investments due to “unfavourable market conditions”.
Total assets stood at $64.8 billion at September, 1.4 per cent higher than December 2024.