Two months after over half of the shares of Bico Ltd. were put on the market in one tranche, no formal offer had been received by close of business on Friday, November 18, The Broad Street Journal has learned.

“A unique opportunity awaits a purchaser to acquire the entities that collectively own the majority shareholding (54%) of this established company,” says a statement in an offer document dated September 15, 2011 by KPMG on behalf of Bico, the Barbados-based ice cream manufacturer, which also also operates cold storage facilities at it headquarters next to the Bridgetown Port.

While the offer does not disclose the names of those entities, the company’s annual report for 2010 puts the number of issued shares at slightly over 2.3 million. 54% of that number would be around 1.25 million, making it likely that the shares to be sold are currently owned by Nordev One Ltd. (556,000), Nordev Two Ltd. (221,000) and Windsong Investments Ltd. (463,000), which added together total around the same number. THe company has 350 shareholders, but only two others, along with those mentioned above, have over 5% stakes in the company - the insurance giant Sagicor through various mutual funds subsidiaries (193,000 shares), and Tropic Ice Unlimited, a maker of water and party ice products (118,000).

The current BICO share price was listed at Bds$1.86 on the Barbados Stock Exchange.

The company, formed out of a merger between two competing ice makers in 1901 as the Barbados Ice Co. Ltd., has a long history of service in the days before widespread availability of electricity around Barbados led to now commonplace items such as refrigerators and ice cubes in homes and businesses. It began making ice cream in 1949, but in recent years began to source some of its products from outside of the region.

Over the past five years the company has seen its gross sales fall as well as its earning before interest payments and taxes. Sales have fallen every year from US$8.5 million in 2006 to US$6.5 million in 2010, while EDITDA has dropped by half over the same period, from US$.2 million in 2006 to US$690 million in 2010.