A version of this story was initially published online.

Ice-cream manufacturer Caribbean Cream Limited (CCL) will go to the market this month with an initial public offering (IPO) to raise between J$60 and J$80 million of equity capital.

Mark Croskery, president and chief executive officer of Stocks and Securities Limited, lead broker and arranger of the offer, said the shares will be priced between J$0.80 and J$1.10.

The IPO is set to open later this month and close sometime in April.

CCL, a manufacturer and distributor of ice cream and ice cream products, operates under the brand 'Kremi', and was incorporated in 2006 by its current chief executive officer, Christopher Clarke.

The company manufactures 20 different flavours of ice-cream in three-gallon, 1.5 gallon and quart sizes, as well as three flavours of ice-cream cakes.

The company is also the local distributor of the Flavorite brand of frozen novelties from Trinidad.

The funds from the IPO will be used to help finance the company's expansion as well as for general working capital.

"Currently, 80 per cent of our sales is from bulk ice cream," said Clarke. We see room to grow into the supermarket segment," he said.

Clarke said some of the funds will also be used to purchase new equipment for its operation, including a cold storage room, that is, a large freezer to store finished products.

The company's current storage freezer has the capacity to hold 5,000 boxes of three-gallon ice cream. The new freezer will increase storage capacity by five times that amount and will cut down freezing time for Kremi's products from 14 hours to 10 hours, Clarke said

The ice-cream plant produces 30,000 gallons of ice cream weekly.

"Our plant operates at full capacity now and we want to move to the next phase of production so as to increase output by about twice that level," he said.

CCL operates a manufacturing plant on South Road, Kingston 5, as well as a distribution plant in Montego Bay.

sabrina.gordon@gleanerjm.com