merchandising
p. 34 · Read in the full issue
End to another merchandising business
AUSTRALIA’S Burns Philp com pany has off-loaded another island
merchandising business.
South Pacific Stores Ltd, a joint venture company owned by Ifira Trurstees and the Total group of com panies from Papua New Guinea, bought BP’s merchandising interests in Vanuatu for SUS 4.6 million.
The sale includes BP’s wholesale, retail and hardware operations in Port Vila and Tekabor on the main island of Efate and at Luganvillc on Santo island, which
together generate annual revenue of about SUSB.S million.
In the last financial year ended June 30, BP’s Vanuatu operations posted a net profit of SUSS 10,400 to the company’s overall 5U569.3 million profit.
The sale ends more than 100 years of Burns Philp’s merchandising business in Vanuatu, and marks yet another stage in the company’s transformation from an island trader into an international food group.
BP’s managing director Andrew Turnbull said the company planned to maintain a presence on the island through a joint venture with Japan’s Toyota distributor, Toyota Tsusho Corp, which owns Vanuatu Motors.
Vanuatu Motors, which is listed on the Tokyo stock exchange, generates sales of
SUS 4.6 million and employs 50.
BP’s first links in Vanuatu were in 1889 through a shareholding in the Australasian New Hebrides Company' founded by several Sydney and MelJ bourne businessmen. Burns Philp acx cjuired (he balance of ANH company in 1897 and later expanded its shipping ano trading links in the country.
The BP acquisition is the bigges« undertaking for Kira Trustees Ltd, saio its chairman Kalpokor Kalsakau, a former politician turned businessman.
He said Ifira picked Total for partner: ship because of its success in merchandise ing trade in Papua New Guinea.
The South Pacific Stores purchase wa:/ the first business transaction approveo under Vanuatu’s new finance minister!
Willy Jimmy. d