6 months ago
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FosRich USA is now up and running from its base in Tennessee.
The associate of FosRich Company Limited has entered the United States in the niche space as a BME, or black and minority ethnic business, targeting Tennessee, New York, Texas, Kentucky and North Carolina, according to FosRich CEO Cecil Foster.
Its intent is to supply construction material to firms that benefit from the mandatory federal, state and city contracts allocated to BMEs.
“Minority businesses have been guaranteed a certain amount from government contracts. These contracts must be done by small and medium-sized businesses. That is where we’re going to be playing in; we will be giving contract support to them in terms of products,” Foster told the Financial Gleaner on his way back from a three-day sweep across the states, meeting with local mayors, chambers of commerce, suppliers and other business entities.
FosRich USA LLC operates from 220 Main Street in Ashland, Tennessee. Seed financing of US$30,000 has been allocated from private funding for the start-up of the operations.
Foster said FosRich USA, with its three-member team, will essentially operate as an intermediary for the Jamaican operation as a supplier to BME contractors. The products to be supplied cover the range presently supported by FosRich to include PVC conduits and water pipes, sewage pipes, electrical fixtures and other products, and lumber.
“The federal government infrastructure buildout requires that 10 per cent of all contracts should go to minority business enterprises. These businesses often don’t have access to credit and connections with suppliers that would enable them to take advantage of these contracts, and that’s where we come in,” Foster said, noting that estimates indicate that these contractors have about US$1.6 billion in contracts that are open to them, but need support to execute.
“We are going for even 10 per cent of that amount between now and the next eight to 12 months,” Foster declared. “So BME contractors needing to source pipes and pipe fittings, construction lumber, electrical fixtures from Siemens and the like, all of those, we will supply that,” he added.
He says already, FosRich is lined up to supply products into sewerage projects in Tennessee and Texas in the next two months.
FosRich Jamaica owns 20 per cent of the US operation. The other 80 per cent is held by the husband-and-wife team of directors Cecil and Marion Foster. The Fosters are also the majority owners of FosRich Company Limited, which is listed on the junior market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange.
A somewhat similar arrangement covers the ownership of associate company Blue Emerald, where the Fosters own 70 per cent, the FosRich executive management team holds 10 per cent, and the other 20 per cent is owned by FosRich Company Limited.
Blue Emerald is effectively two business units operating on the same premises at Hayes, Clarendon. One section manufactures PVC pipes and fittings, from conduits to 12-inch sewer pipes; while the other does electrical transformer repairs.
Through a partnership with Cam Tran out of Canada, the foreign company that formerly repaired transformers for electricity utility Jamaica Public Service Company, Blue Emerald’s staff receive training in repair of the equipment.
Cam Tran now supplies the coils and cores along with other elements to repair the transformers locally, obviating the special shipping and transportation of the sometimes bulky and heavy units.
The transformer repairs operations, which has been operational since 2022, now has 24 technicians handling the repairs.
“The transformer repairs side of the business is going very well,” said Foster.
“We’ve managed to do many items for our key customer JPS, and we’re finding increasing interest from other companies outside of JPS to include large companies, bauxite mining companies, the hotels, and so on,” Foster said.
The pipes and fittings side of Blue Emerald has a staff of about 30 people, according to Foster. He says all the production coming out of that side of the operation are directly supplied to parent company FosRich, to be put into the hardware and construction trade wherever FosRich does business.
English (US) ·