WELCOME TO THE FAMILY!

March 1999 Table of Contents - Current Issue of The Abaco Journal - Abaco Bahamas' Home Page

WELCOME TO THE FAMILY!

When Abaco Markets completed the friendly takeover of Freeport's Thompson Wholesale on 8th January, it was hardly the stuff of which textbook mergers are made. Directors and management of both companies left the board room smiling, walked into the warehouse at Thompson Wholesale like old friends and launched a getting-to-know-you session with the employees that looked more like a family reunion than an acquisition.

"We love you." one woman who had been working for Thompson Wholesale whispered to a director of Abaco Markets. "We love them, too, but we love you and we're gonna get along great." In return, when directors spoke with employees of the company they had just welcomed into their family of business it was as if they were old friends. College business professors and casual observers of mergers and acquisitions would have had a hard time figuring this one.

"We were all pleasantly surprised at how friendly everybody was and how warm the atmosphere was," said Reginald Sands, Treasurer and a director of Abaco Markets Ltd, the Marsh Harbour based company whose stock soared from $5.25 when it went public last year to $8.76 today.

The new partnership between the two successful companies created the nation's largest Family island wholesale distributor and is expected to add some $8 million in sales this year. Under the terms of the sale, Joseph Thompson, founder of the 10-year-old Grand Bahama food and grocery wholesale company, will remain as Managing Director. His son, Jarrett Thompson, will become Operations and Marketing Manager.

Craig Symonette, Chairman of Abaco Markets which projects sales of $30 million in 1999, said the addition of Thompson Wholesale would add value to the shareholders' equity and pledged that 'the little company from Abaco' would continue to look for prudent opportunities for growth.

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