After a bruising year of softer sales and red ink, chemicals distributor Paramount Trading is pressing the reset button on every front—people, processes, and partnerships—in a bid to restore the growth streak investors once took for granted.
People-first overhaul
Chief Executive Hugh Graham has reshuffled internal teams after a full skills audit, redeploying staff to roles that “match individual strengths with the company’s long‑term objectives.” The redesign, he says, is paired with culture‑building programmes meant to bind employees to a common mission of “collective accountability for performance.”
Tightening the expense belt
Parallel to the organisational revamp, management has imposed a company‑wide drive to trim overheads and revive dormant customer accounts. “We are re‑engaging clients whose volumes slipped last year and attacking non‑essential costs,” Graham told the Business Ledger.
Quarter three bounce‑back
The efforts are beginning to register on the bottom line. Paramount swung to a $9.3 million profit in its third fiscal quarter (ended February 2025) on revenue of $409 million. While the nine‑month top line of $1.2 billion is still 5.5 per cent lower year on year, the quarterly uptick has pared the year‑to‑date loss to $43.1 million—an improvement on the trajectory set in the first half.
Chairman Radcliffe Knibbs assured shareholders the board “will keep chasing new revenue streams while holding expenses down until profitability is firmly re‑established.”
Strategic alliance with MMS Group
A headline element of that revenue hunt is a freshly inked supply and co‑manufacturing pact with facilities‑management giant Manpower & Maintenance Services (MMS) Group, unveiled at Expo Jamaica in early April. Paramount will provide speciality chemicals for MMS’s operations and produce private‑label items, including its flagship disinfectant brand Powersol, while also offering warehousing and logistics support.
“This is three years in the making,” Graham noted. “We expect incremental sales this fiscal year and a more pronounced lift in the next.”
Outlook
Labeling last year’s slip as “a passing glitch,” the CEO remains bullish: “Our realignment is already producing green shoots. With disciplined cost control and the MMS partnership coming on‑stream, we are confident of reclaiming our historical growth curve.”
Investors will watch the June‑year‑end numbers to see whether those green shoots blossom into a full‑fledged turnaround.
