Andersons not sold: ENBDC

Islands, Normal
Source:

ELIZABETH VUVU

THE Andersons Foodland, a subsidiary of the East New Britain Development Corporation (ENBDC), has not been sold.
ENBDC chairman William Lamur made this clear last Friday to dispel reports that it had been sold.
Mr Lamur said it had only sold the trading activities and leased properties to third parties who would operate the wholesale and retail business.
He said that the ENBDC sold of enough to pay K18 million to the Andersons family in Port Moresby while it still owned 100% of properties in Lae, Port Moresby and East New Britain province.
“What we are all about is smart business, we could not compete with our Asian brothers in running supermarkets, and the next best thing we did was to take this route,” he said.
Mr Lamur said fortunately, a number of big companies around Papua New Guinea were going this way and ENBDC followed suit.
“With this restructuring and doing business much smarter, we are able to pay K2 million as dividends to the provincial government rather than the K200,000 to K600,000 we used to pay in the past,” he said.
Mr Lamur said they would have a name change from Andersons Foodland to ENBDC Properties Ltd next October.
He said the name change was for tax reasons as the entity would run the biggest portfolio involving properties.
Meanwhile, Mr Lamur said they were working on establishing another supermarket in Lae.
He reiterated that Andersons Foodland belonged to East New Britain province and it was of greater value now than it was in the past.