JAMAICA: Pulse looks to sell its real estate holdings

Shareholders of Pulse Investments Limited have given the model agency’s board permission to offload the company’s real estate holdings, although CEO and chairman Kingsley Cooper says there are no immediate plans to sell.

Pulse Investments has a stake in Pulse Centre at 38A Trafalgar Road in Kingston as well as the Villa Ronai Spa and Suites in Stony Hill, St Andrew. The modelling agency has operational control of the properties via a 49-year prepaid lease from Cooper. The lease was prepaid in 2005-2006 via an issue of shares in Pulse to Cooper, who now owns 76 per cent of Pulse Investments.

Cooper remains the principal owner of the real estate holdings – which have a carrying value of $1.1 billion on Pulse’s balance sheet, with $392 million classified as construction in progress – but Pulse has a substantial interest, as a result of the prepaid lease and capital investments in the properties over time. Cooper said that as a result of these arrangements, 100 per cent of all income derived by the properties flows to Pulse.

The company rents 60 per cent of the Trafalgar Road premises to boutique and beauty salon operators, a restaurant, offices and other shops. The Villa Ronai property is rented periodically for events and film and television shoots.

Last Tuesday, the 10 shareholders who attended the company’s annual general meeting, of the 257 on record, voted unanimously in favour of the disposal of Pulse’s interest in the real estate.

“This resolution does not mean that the property or the real estate interests is going to be sold. What it does is give the directors the option to sell it once a proper valuation has been done,” said the executive chairman. It’s unclear whether Cooper himself would seek to buy Pulse’s stake