Farmers Rangiora store to continue under new owners

Press, 16 July 1982, Page 2

Farmers Rangiora store to continue under new owners

The Farmers and Haywrights retail store at Rangiora. which has a background of 100 years of serving North Canterbury, will continue business under a new company. The company which has bought the business is Rangi-

ora Farmers, Ltd, and the store will trade under that name. The business was one of six stores owned by Farmers and Haywrights, Ltd, which was not among 13 acquired by the Aucklandbased Farmers Trading Company, Ltd, last month. The principal shareholders of Rangiora Farmers are Mr A. Still, at present manager of the Farmers and Haywrights Cashel Street store,

and Mr T. Freer, manager of the Rangiora store. The news has ended weeks of anxiety for the Rangiora staff of 30, who were told of the transaction at a special meeting last evening. A redundancy agreement had already been settled to provide for redundancies if they came but the managing director of New Zealand Farmers. Mr J. B. Buxton, said in a statement yesterday that all the employees would have continuity of employment. The new owners would continue the existing enterprise as a general retail store, he said. Mr Still said that Mr Freer and he were delighted to see the business carry on, as it had 100 years of tradi- . tion behind it. Rangiora Farmers has bought the business assets, stock. fixt>sFes, and fittings of the store and will lease the building from Haywrights. Mr Buxton said that the Cashel Street store would continue to trade “with a view to developing current discussions being held with interested parties.” The Cashel Street business had a long-term future and Mr Still had been asked to help as an executive consultant for another six months. Negotiations on the future of the four other stores not

bought by F.T.C. were continuing. who is 38, joined Hays, Ltd, in 1966 and was made assistant manager of the Christchurch store in 1971. In 1973 he was appointed manager of Haywrights, Blenheim. He re-

turned to Christchurch two years ago as manager of the Cashel Street branch. Mr Freer, who is 26, joined New Zealand Farmers when he left school and worked his way up to be merchandise manager of the Cashel Street store. Earlier this year he was named Young Retailer of the Year by the Retailers’ Federation. He is the youngest manager appointed by Farmers and Haywrights.