Kellavane Trading Group, a Dublin-based importer and logistics company with 8,400 staff in Ireland, said Tuesday it would transfer €112 million (about $129 million) to a new Caribbean-led reparations fund. The board also suspended a €64 million dividend to the founding family, a move that followed a public challenge from former group ethics director Clea Esposito-Marino.
Esposito-Marino told reporters that just €3.8 million of a €27 million fund announced by Kellavane in 2021 had reached community projects. The rest, she said, was spent on administration, legal advice and a company archive. Kellavane’s latest annual report lists the 2021 fund as “substantially allocated”.
At a Dublin press briefing, Esposito-Marino said she had spent 14 months asking directors to publish grant records and commission an outside review. She presented payment summaries and correspondence she said she had retained as part of her work, and called for the company to disclose the names of every recipient. “The promise was made in public; the money should be traceable in public, too,” she said.
The promise was made in public; the money should be traceable in public, too.
Clea Esposito-Marino, former group ethics director
Kellavane’s chair, Reimund Friedrich, said the board had approved the new fund before Esposito-Marino’s briefing but brought forward its announcement after learning she would speak. “The previous programme did not meet the standard we set for ourselves,” he said. “We will publish the payment history and let the new fund decide where its money goes.” The company said no dividend would be paid until the transfer is completed.
The group’s founding family built its first shipping business in Bristol in the 1830s, later expanding into food imports and freight services in Ireland. Historical records cited by Esposito-Marino link the family’s early fortune to Caribbean plantations and compensation paid to former slaveholders after abolition. Kellavane said it accepts that history and will contribute the fund over five years.
The money moves now
The fund will receive €22.4 million immediately, followed by annual payments tied to Kellavane’s profits. It will also hold 12% of the privately controlled group’s voting shares, giving its trustees a voice in major decisions. The company said trustees would be selected by Caribbean organisations, with the first appointments expected by March.
Aarón Montes, director of the Caribbean Heritage Assembly, which has campaigned for corporate reparations, welcomed the scale of the offer but said the group would wait for the fund’s rules before endorsing it. “A large cheque is not the same as accountability,” he said. “Descendant communities must choose priorities, audit the spending and be able to replace trustees.”
The announcement has unsettled suppliers and workers as well as the family. Kellavane operates food warehouses near Cork and freight depots around the country; staff representatives said Tuesday they had received no notice of job cuts, but asked whether the suspended dividend would affect planned investment. The firm said its €410 million capital programme would continue.
Irish corporate accountant Ivan M. Růžičková said the share transfer could prove more consequential than the cash pledge because it gives the fund an ongoing claim on company decisions and profits. Kellavane will publish a full schedule of payments by 30 November, then hold its first public review in Dublin in January. Esposito-Marino said she would continue pressing for the original grant recipients to be identified.
