ANALYSIS
A Guyanese company broke ground in Basseterre on Thursday on an investment worth thirteen times its St Kitts unit's annual revenue. In a market where capital overwhelmingly flows inward, DDL is the rare Guyanese firm sending it the other way.
BY LCN NEWSROOM · GEORGETOWN, GUYANA
Quick summary: Demerara Distillers Limited broke ground on a US$14 million expansion in St Kitts and Nevis on 6 August 2026, committing thirteen times that subsidiary's 2025 revenue of about US$1.07 million. On the record this newspaper can find, only one other Guyanese company has established anywhere in CARICOM since 2023, making DDL the country's leading outward investor.
What does the title card show?
Every data point on the article's title card, in text.
- US$14 million. The value of DDL's Bird Rock redevelopment in St Kitts, sod-turned 6 August 2026. Source: St Kitts and Nevis Information Service.
- US$1.07 million. Revenue of DDL's St Kitts segment in 2025, up from about US$627,000 in 2024. Source: DDL Annual Report 2025, segment note. Converted at the house rate below.
- 13 times. The St Kitts investment as a multiple of that segment's 2025 revenue. Source: this newspaper's calculation.
- G$3.5 billion. What DDL says it spent rehabilitating and upgrading the building that houses the World Trade Centre Georgetown. Source: DDL Annual Report 2025, Chairman's Report.
- G$33.4 billion. DDL group turnover in 2025, against G$24.7 billion in 2020. Source: DDL Annual Report 2025, Ten Year Review.
- 27.3 per cent. DDL's operating margin in 2025, against 21.6 per cent in 2020. Source: Ten Year Review.
- More than 300. World Trade Centres in over 90 countries, the network Georgetown joined. Source: World Trade Centers Association.
- G$216.50 = US$1. The rate used for every conversion in this article.
What did DDL commit to in St Kitts?
US$14 million, into a business that is currently very small.
Demerara Distillers (St Kitts and Nevis) Limited turned the sod on a redevelopment of its Bird Rock operations on Thursday 6 August. The St Kitts and Nevis Information Service put the project at approximately US$14 million, covering expanded production and warehousing, laboratory and quality-control infrastructure, offices, retail and commercial space, visitor amenities and energy-efficient systems.
Group Chairman Komal Samaroo told WINN FM the site will add juice and milk lines and serve as DDL's export hub to nearby islands, tied to CARICOM's 25 by 25 food-security target. Prime Minister Dr Terrance Drew said the expansion will triple the number of people working there, and described St Kitts and Nevis as becoming DDL's northern Caribbean hub.
Set that against the accounts. DDL's own segment note puts St Kitts revenue at G$231.96 million in 2025, about US$1.07 million, up 70.9 per cent from G$135.69 million the year before. Profit before tax in the segment went the other way, from G$8.27 million to G$7.53 million. Capital additions rose from G$188,000 to G$5.3 million as work began.
So the company is committing roughly thirteen times that unit's annual revenue. Read against the segment, this is not incremental expansion. It is a conviction investment, sized for the business DDL expects St Kitts to become rather than the one it is.
Is this part of a wave of Guyanese investment abroad?
No. On the available record it is close to the only one.
The obvious frame for a story like this is that oil-era Guyanese capital is moving out into the region. This newspaper tested that and could not sustain it.
Since 2023, on the public record this newspaper can find, only one other Guyanese company has established in another CARICOM state. Demerara Bank Limited received Eastern Caribbean Central Bank approval in April 2024 for DB St Lucia Incorporated, a wholly owned investment subsidiary rather than the retail branch several outlets reported at the time.
It has become the more interesting of the two moves. The bank's audited accounts for the year to September 2025 put net income from St Lucia at G$4.45 billion against G$3.96 billion from Guyana. The offshore subsidiary out-earned the entire Guyanese bank, in both 2025 and 2024, and the parent went from G$2.16 billion to G$5.39 billion of capital committed to it in a single year. A Guyanese bank is now making the majority of its group income outside Guyana.
Elsewhere the search returns nothing. The Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry lists twelve branches, all of them in Guyana, and holds correspondent accounts in Barbados and St Kitts, which are banking relationships rather than establishments. No Guyanese oil and gas services firm has established in Suriname or Trinidad to the same scale, and the Vreed-en-Hoop Shorebase exists precisely to bring fabrication work back the other way.
The traffic in the other direction is heavy by comparison. Banks Holdings of Barbados holds a fifth of the Guyanese operating subsidiary of Banks DIH. Republic Bank in Guyana answers to Port of Spain. Massy and Ansa McAl are Trinidadian. Unicomer is Salvadoran. Every significant aviation development of the past two years has been a foreign carrier adding capacity into Georgetown.
The region invests in Guyana. DDL invests in the region.
DDL's St Kitts position is also not new. The company has been in the Federation since 1996, thirty years. What happened on Thursday is a thirty-year-old position being enlarged, which is a different thing from a new market entry and should not be read as one.
What does DDL's own record look like?
Ten years of rising profit, and one bad year that reveals the business.
DDL is listed on the Guyana Stock Exchange, and its Ten Year Review is audited and was approved by the directors on 19 February 2026.
| G$ billion | 2020 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turnover | 24.69 | 33.27 | 30.84 | 33.40 |
| Operating profit | 5.33 | 7.85 | 8.50 | 9.13 |
| Profit after tax | 3.89 | 5.97 | 5.82 | 6.14 |
| Gross assets | 37.80 | 67.05 | 77.24 | 91.02 |
| Operating margin | 21.6% | 23.6% | 27.6% | 27.3% |
Source: DDL Annual Report 2025, Ten Year Review. Turnover in 2025 is about US$154.3 million at G$216.50 to the dollar.
The trend is not a straight line and the interesting part is where it bends. Turnover peaked in 2023, fell 7.3 per cent in 2024 as bulk spirit exports collapsed, then recovered to a record in 2025. Yet operating profit rose in every one of those years, and the margin stepped up sharply in 2024, from 23.6 to 27.6 per cent, in the year revenue fell.
The company earned more on less. That is a business shifting weight from low-margin bulk spirit exports toward branded and non-alcoholic products, and it is the financial fact that makes a US$14 million bet on juice and milk lines legible rather than surprising.
Capital spending in 2025 was G$11.19 billion, about US$51.7 million, the largest single-year figure in the series.
What did the World Trade Centre cost?
G$3.5 billion, and the figure has not been reported before.
The World Trade Centre Georgetown is DDL's. The licence is held by Demerara Distillers Limited, and Komal Samaroo, who is President and Chairman of DDL, is Executive Chairman of the trade centre.
The figure appears in DDL's annual report for 2025, in the Chairman's Report under capital expenditure: "World Trade Centre – this building was rehabilitated and upgraded at the cost of $3.5 billion."
That is G$3.5 billion, about US$16.2 million at the house rate. On the record this newspaper can find, the figure has not been reported anywhere else.
The spend is larger than the St Kitts expansion. It produced a seven-floor building of about 37,500 square feet at Lot 44 High Street, Kingston, next to the Guyana Elections Commission, carrying an auditorium, three meeting rooms, a business centre and eight long-term office spaces.
The building was commissioned on 20 June 2025 and the centre launched its activities on 21 October 2025.
What is the trade centre doing?
Trading, with two diplomatic missions among its tenants.
The World Trade Centre Georgetown is the first World Trade Centre in CARICOM, a milestone the CARICOM Secretariat has formally recognised and one the World Trade Centers Association records on its own member page. It joins a network of more than 300 World Trade Centres in over 90 countries.
The centre is open and working. The World Trade Centers Association's directory records six tenants, two business members, twenty clients and thirty events held since 1 April 2026. The tenants include the Embassy of Colombia, the High Commission of Belize and a DDL duty free shop. DDL has signed memoranda of understanding with sister centres including World Trade Center Miami, through which three Guyanese manufacturers exhibited at the Americas Food and Beverage Show in September 2024.
Where does the bottled water plant fit?
In a category DDL already supplies from its own well.
DDL produces Diamond Mineral Water, drawn from its own artesian well and treated by reverse osmosis, and is the leading producer of non-alcoholic beverages in Guyana, bottling Pepsi, Seven-Up and Slice alongside its own brands. Water sits inside the same non-alcoholic business the St Kitts juice and milk lines are meant to extend.
On 27 July the National Assembly approved G$496.3 million for a state-owned water bottling plant to be run by Guyana Water Incorporated, about US$2.3 million. The Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association, of which DDL is a member, has asked that the project be structured as a partnership with existing producers, saying members "have invested capital, built distribution networks, and created jobs in this space over many years". President Irfaan Ali has said "GWI is not in competition with anyone".
DDL has made no public statement on the plant. What the accounts show is a company whose non-alcoholic side is carrying more of the group every year, and which has just committed US$14 million to expanding exactly that side offshore.
What happens next?
Four things worth watching, and the first is already moving.
1. The St Kitts segment through 2027 and 2028. Revenue there rose 70.9 per cent last year before the new plant existed. The build is sized to compound that, and the segment note will show whether it does.
2. The export hub. Samaroo has framed the site as DDL's route into the nearby islands. Shipments out of Bird Rock into the Eastern Caribbean are the measure of whether a manufacturing base becomes a distribution one.
3. The trade centre network. The Miami memorandum already took three Guyanese manufacturers to a US trade show. DDL has signed memoranda with centres in Panama, the United States and India, and each is a channel Guyanese exporters did not previously have.
4. A second Guyanese firm. DDL and Demerara Bank are currently the whole of Guyana's outward investment into CARICOM. The interesting question for the next two years is who follows them.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did DDL announce in St Kitts and Nevis?
A redevelopment and expansion of its Bird Rock operations valued at approximately US$14 million, sod-turned on 6 August 2026. It covers production, warehousing, laboratory and quality-control facilities, offices, retail space and visitor amenities, and will add juice and milk lines.
How large is DDL's St Kitts business?
Its St Kitts segment turned over G$231.96 million in 2025, about US$1.07 million, up 70.9 per cent on the year, while segment profit before tax fell slightly. The investment is roughly thirteen times that annual revenue.
Are other Guyanese companies expanding into CARICOM?
Very few. On the record this newspaper can find, the only other establishment since 2023 is Demerara Bank Limited's DB St Lucia Incorporated, approved by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank in April 2024, and sources conflict over whether it is a branch or an investment subsidiary.
What did the World Trade Centre Georgetown cost?
DDL's 2025 annual report states the building was rehabilitated and upgraded at a cost of G$3.5 billion, about US$16.2 million at G$216.50 to the dollar. On the record this newspaper can find, the figure has not been reported elsewhere.
What is the World Trade Centre Georgetown?
A seven-floor, roughly 37,500 square foot trade centre at Lot 44 High Street, Kingston, operated by DDL. It is the first World Trade Centre in CARICOM. Its tenants include the Embassy of Colombia and the High Commission of Belize.