CPL plans ahead for new year

 By GYNNIE KERO

DESPITE a downward trend this year, the City Pharmacy Group has bigger plans set for next year, chairman Mahesh Patel says.

He told The National that the overall profit for the Group was down this financial year as anticipated by CPL, due to investments in new business ventures.

The Group had forecast a full year before tax profits of approximately K17 million, a drop by about 28% from last year.

“The pharmacies/supermarket divisions have been okay but the hardware division had big stock losses which have dragged our overall profits down. It’s just new businesses like new cinemas, Eagle Boys. 

“When you start new businesses it takes a while to get up and running so you suffer start-up costs/losses in the early three years.

“Any new business it doesn’t just add to your profits straight away.

“It’s sort of rough, but we expected it because of the slowdown and all that but next year is a big year for us, looking at consolidations, a lot of investments in staff and infrastructure and all that.

“We’ve got some big plans next year,” Patel said.

Yesterday, the Group opened its second branch of Stop N Shop Express, its convenience store brand at the Deloitte Towers, Port Moresby.

The store carries a wide assortment of merchandise ranging from food to non-food items.

The first was opened at the Airways last February; it has other CPL stores like the City Pharmacy and Boncafe situated inside it to better serve customers.

Patel said CPL had plans to roll out more outlets in coming years if there was a requirement to expand into smaller areas.

“Opening of similar outlets (Stop N Shop Express) depends on demographics (i.e, population), if there’s a requirement we will expand into smaller areas,” he said.

“Ideally, if there are entrepreneurs, we would like to start a franchise so we do not want have to keep doing it ourselves.

“But that again is a very new concept in PNG at this stage.”

Chief operating officer David Young when asked about CPL’s investment in the convenience store said: “The investment here is literally nothing because we had a previous store here City Pharmacy so we reinvested the funds into products to cater for the dynamic business environment.”