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Business |
Chemcare takes over 2 Foodland
supermarts
Pharma group will start running
Andersons’ Rabaul and Lae stores by the end of this month: Lamur
THE running of Andersons Foodland
stores in Lae and Rabaul will be taken over by major
pharmaceutical group Chemcare Pharmacy Ltd at the end of the
month under a K7 million lease arrangement.
Andersons Foodland, a subsidiary of the ENB Development Corp,
was having management problems and that the management takeover
by Chemcare was expected to shore up the supermarket’s
operations.
William Lamur, chairman of the ENBDC board of directors, said
Chemcare was expected to assume management of the two stores at
the end of this month.
He said Chemcare would pay Andersons Foodland Group at least K7
million on the day of the management takeover.
Mr Lamur said during an open forum held last Friday that talks
to reorganise the company had been going for five to six years
in an effort to stabilise its operations and get good returns.
However, the company board decided later that it was time to
lease out the supermarkets.
“We want to streamline the business to generate better returns,”
Mr Lamur said.
The open forum was hosted by provincial administrator Aquila
Tubal and Mr Lamur.
Sinai Brown, former public service minister and former ENBDC
chairman, who also attended the
forum, noted that the
problem with Andersons Foodland was that the Anderson family was
too small.
“With the business growing, it is hard for the family to manage
it effectively.”
But the ENB board later admitted that they could not compete
effectively with other supermarkets and so leasing it out was
the only option to get better returns.
Mr Brown said the supermarkets could generate better returns if
managed properly.
Because of this, he called for more training of local business
people who would run Andersons Foodland business in the future.
“Let’s train ENB business people, send them overseas to get
training to become professional managers,” Mr Brown said.
He even proposed the setting up of business management school in
ENB for local entrepreneurs who wanted to become managers of
their own business.
Last Friday’s forum was held to clear rumours in the province
that Andersons had been sold to a foreign group.
Mr Lamur said the news about Chemcare takeover had been kept
under wraps for a while as the company board was still threshing
out a number of issues concerning the new management.
 
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