JOHNST0N INTERNATIONAL LTD GROUP HISTORY

Johnston International Ltd. (("JIL") is a Caribbean based construction company.  JIL was purchased from Belize Holdings Inc by Oxford Ventures Ltd, a company based in the Turks & Caicos Islands, in May 1999.

Prior to 1994 what is now known as Johnston International was operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Johnston Group PLC, a publicly traded UK company founded in 1904. The construction company of the group was established in 1924. Until 1971 Johnston International was called Hadsphaltic and in fact the regional office in the Caymans is still called Hadsphaltic International Ltd (contact) - a subsidiary of Johnston International Ltd. The name Hadsphaltic prevailed in Cayman from the time the company first arrived in the Caribbean when in 1966 it was awarded its first Caribbean contract to extend and improve the runway facilities at the international airport on Grand Cayman. The company was registered in Cayman as Hadsphaltic and the name has been retained there ever since, even after the Johnston group in the UK decided on its official name change in 1971. Subsequent to the extension of the airport in Cayman, and prior to the company name change, other contracts were awarded and undertaken by the company known as Hadsphaltic, including the airport runways in Belize and then Antigua followed by a small contract in Montserrat.


After the name change contracts were awarded in the name of Johnston International Ltd. In 1973 Johnston constructed the runway in the Falkland Islands. Later the company went further afield and undertook work in Mauritius and Sri Lanka.


Because of various commercial benefits, in 1994 Providenciales in the Turks & Caicos Islands was chosen as the location for the head office for Johnston International Ltd. Johnston had first established a presence in Providenciales when it arrived on the island in 1981 to build the Providenciales International Airport. In 1994 seven employees moved from the office in Redhill in Surrey in the UK to establish the office on Providenciales. Two of the seven are still based in the Turks & Caicos Islands.

Moving the corporate head offices to the Caribbean from the UK has served to make the company not only considerably more competitive but has allowed it to expand to the extent that it is now the largest construction company in terms of presence throughout the Caribbean region. In 1994 the company had offices in Cayman under the name of Hadsphaltic and in the Turks & Caicos Islands as Johnston International Ltd. Since then it has expanded and has now three additional regional offices in Belize, Trinidad and Barbados. Trinidad is the newest member where the first contract was awarded to the company in June 2004.


Regional History

Following its first Caribbean contract in Cayman in 1966 shortly thereafter the company was awarded the airport contract in Belize. There then followed a hiatus in Belize until the 80’s when the company took on a major hotel extension and has subsequently been involved in mostly civil engineering contracts in that country.


The company first arrived on Providenciales in the Turks & Caicos Islands in 1981 to construct the runway and then followed the construction of Club Med in 1983 that was the precursor of the development boom the islands enjoy today. Development in the Turks & Caicos Islands was rather sporadic in the 80’s after the construction of Club Med, but since the mid 90s development has been fast paced and Johnston International Ltd. has been a major contributor in that development. The company completed the upgrade of the Leeward Highway in 2005 and is currently constructing two government owned hospitals, with one in the capital of Grand Turk and one on the island of Providenciales.


Prior to the acquisition in 1994 the company had been fairly active in St. Lucia and had built several hotels on the island as well as Club Med. Up until 2006 the company worked in St. Lucia on a more or less continual basis.  At that time a decision was made not to maintain a permanent office in St. Lucia.


Johnston International has been working on Barbados since 1999 and has completed several major projects, including a large building for the Insurance Corporation of Barbados, the Royal Bank of Canada, the Barbados National Bank, the new UN regional building, the Hilton Hotel and more recently the new American Embassy. Over the years Johnston showed an interest in working with a local company in Barbados and later merged to be known as Tucker Johnston Ltd (contact).


The company has only recently established a regional presence in Trinidad after it was awarded an eighteen month contract to build a large multi-story car park with one level of retail. This particular project in the capital of Port of Spain is also associated with the Campus Plaza project, which is a series of government buildings to be constructed.