Leni Gas Cuba Limited, a Cuban-specialist investment company, and Groombridge Trading Corporation have formed a new unincorporated 50/50 joint venture designed to expand GTC’s existing business of supplying products, machinery and equipment to the fast-growing Cuban tourism sector and exporting agricultural products from Cuba.

GTC, established in 2013, is a Canadian-registered company that is approved to trade in Cuba by the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment and the Ministry of Agriculture and is authorized to trade with Cuban government entities. Leni Gas Cuba is a London-listed company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands in March 2015 as a vehicle for making investments and acquisitions in Cuba.

The new joint venture will assist GTC with its existing imports for the hotels and tourism sector and will become a financial partner in new business moving forward. The JV will have an exclusive, first right of refusal to participate on a deal by deal 50:50 basis in any current and new transactions originated and operated by GTC. In addition to growing GTC’s current trading activities, the joint venture will also work with GTC to develop a number of agricultural projects and initiatives currently under negotiation and to assist with new export orders of agricultural products to Europe and Canada.

“Groombridge Trading has relationships with some of the largest enterprises in Cuba,” said David Lenigas, LNC’s executive chairman. “They have a sound pipeline of imports mainly focused on importing equipment from Europe, Asia, and South America, for the burgeoning hotel sector in Cuba. The new joint venture will use LGC’s contacts and balance sheet to significantly grow GTC’s existing business and investigate new lines of import and export trading in a country that imports the majority of what it consumes.”

“We are pleased to be working with Leni Gas Cuba Limited, one of the few public listed companies in the world specifically dedicated to investment in Cuba,” added Christopher Murphy, GTC’s president.

LGC has committed to invest $75,000 into the JV up front and then make monthly payments of over $11,000 for the first 12 months as an overhead contribution to the new joint venture.