Business View Caribbean | March 2019

31 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN MARCH 2019 M.S. Osborne Ltd. Montserrat’s First & Best Choice M ontserrat: captivating in both natural beauty and intrepid endurance; a land where “business as usual” is not the same “usual” as anywhere else. When you’re in the north, you don’t even know there is a volcano. The grass is green, the air is fresh. Only on very rare occasions, when a cloud of ash sails across the sky, do you catch a glimpse of what’s simmering to the south. The longest operating family business on Montserrat, M.S. Osborne Ltd., has been serving island residents for more than 80 years, and has experienced nature’s wrath, firsthand, during Hurricane Hugo and the eruption of the Soufriere Hills Volcano. When others may have given up, the Osborne clan dug in, recalculated, and soldiered on as a beacon of stability in Montserrat, under the branded mantra: “Your First & Best Choice!” Founded in 1938 by Michael Symons Osborne, a passionate entrepreneur and business leader, the company originally specialized in the importation of grocery items, dried goods, building materials, and cement. In the early 1960s he finalized one of his dream projects the 40-room Vue Pointe Hotel. This together with his Colonial styled Coconut Hill Hotel in Plymouth would become two of the flagship properties of Montserrat’s tourism industry. Today, M. S. Osborne, Ltd. (MSO) continues the legacy with an even more diverse product and services offering – building materials and hardware, wholesale food distribution, furniture and appliances,