Trinidad and Tobago is renowned in the Caribbean for its competitive private sector companies, and there probably is no better representative of the country’s entrepreneurial spirit than Arthur Lok Jack, chairman of Associated Brands Limited, a privately owned food producer and exporter with annual revenues of $400 million.
Lok Jack, 58, has an easy-going demeanor that belies an astute and energetic mind. His unpretentious office at the company’s headquarters in San Juan, an industrial area outside Port of Spain, is lined with bookcases and best-selling management books are stacked on his desktop. “Arthur is a hands-on, practical person,” says Larry Howai, chief executive officer of First Citizens Bank. “Although he spends a lot of his time reading and learning, he is not just a theorist.”
Lok Jack grew up in Nelson Street, a poor area of Port of Spain, and won a scholarship to Trinidad’s prestigious Queen’s Royal College. Early on he worked for Barclays Bank and local pharmaceutical company Sterling Drugs before mortgaging his house at the age of 27 to buy Charles Candy, a chocolate factory. With the help of a TT$1 million bank loan from the public sector Development Finance Company, Lok Jack bought the factory and set about building his empire.
There is little anyone can tell him about his business. He literally built Associated Brands from the ground up, even clearing the land for new factories himself. After more than 30 years in business, he has branched out into snack foods, biscuits and cereals. Once he conquered the English-speaking Caribbean markets, he set his sights on other regions. Associated Brands set up factories in Taiwan, Malaysia and Malta to export to the Asian and Middle Eastern markets. “I have always looked for open markets. When Taiwan was opening up we paid a visit and saw that we could do very well,” he says. It is no surprise that Lok Jack is a strong advocate of free trade agreements, and is convinced that Trinidadian companies can compete globally. He says, “We are very competitive at manufacturing and can compete on price. Whereas international companies cream off the top 10% to 20% of the market, our price appeals to the remaining 80%.”
So far, Lok Jack has financed Associated Brands’ expansion with retained earnings, bank loans and debt issues in the local debt market. Lok Jack says he wants to list the company on Trinidad’s stock market. “We will go in the next two to three years,” he says. “We need to do it for succession planning and the continued growth of the company.”
Lok Jack has advised several Trinidadian companies on acquisitions in the region and sits on the boards of four public companies. Prime Minister Patrick Manning appointed him chairman of the Vision 2020 core industry group committee advising the government on its economic development goals. Lok Jack expects elements of the plan to be included in the 2004 budget. “Many of the issues are political in nature but we cannot subordinate the needs of the country to politics,” he says. “We need to sell this plan to the wider community and engage it in participatory dialogue. We cannot afford for this plan to be derailed every five years when there is a change in government.”
Trinidad needs a public school bus system, better traffic management and a smaller public sector bureaucracy. It also needs to raise the number of students in tertiary education and provide adequate care for senior citizens. Lok Jack says the group needs to act soon. “We need to pick the low hanging fruit. Too many times in the past there have been plans that have not come to reality and there is a credibility [problem],” he says. “The first milestone must be achieved in a way that is not partisan and implemented across all areas of the country. We cannot cherry pick certain areas or constituencies and not others.”