Good year for Brian Bell: CEO

By CLARISSA MOI
THE Brian Bell group had an outstanding year, despite the challenges of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, and is optimistic that 2022 will be another strong trading year, says chief executive officer Cameron Mackellar.
He told The National that they were delighted with the overall performance of the group with each division exceeding expectations this year.
“Like every business, 2021 has been quite a challenging year for the Brain Bell group,” he said.
“However, most of those challenges were from external situations like the Covid-19, international shipping, vaccinations, and of course a struggling PNG economy.
“Although these are all significant issues on their own, 2021 has seen them all converge on many PNG businesses and households, including Brian Bell.
“We have had to adjust our strategies on the run, particularly when it came to Covid-19, and the whole vaccination conversation and programme.”
He said the company was an “absolute advocate for vaccination to protect our team and our customers from something that is quite genuine and harmful to any population as we have all seen throughout 2020 and now 2021”.
“Each division within our group, including trade, electrical, chemicals and Homecentre all had an exceptional trading year,” he said.
“We have delivered significant building projects this year and ventured into a series of new capital projects for 2022 and beyond.
“Our Total fuel service station in Boroko will be operational in early December.
“Very exciting for this new partnership.”
He said Homecentre branch in Mt Hagen would be complete for an opening next May.
“Beyond those two large capital projects, we will start our new Homecentre construction in Goroka after securing land next to the airport this year. The construction will start in early 2022.”
The group will renovate its Kokopo Homecentre next year and look at two other large capital projects for trade, electrical and chemicals towards end of next year or early 2023.
“By the end of 2023, the Brian Bell Group will have invested about half a billion kina in capital project in a five year horizon,” he said.
“This only helps to cement our business and our team members’ future in the years ahead.”