Chase Corp, considering offers for F.T.C. site following market losses

Press, 21 November 1987, Page 4

Chase Corp, considering offers for F.T.C. site following market losses

Chase Corporation yesterday said it was considering offers for its prime Farmers Trading Company site. It denied, however, that it was considering selling its property investments in Christchurch because of share market losses in the recent crash.

It admitted considering offers for the F.T.C. site but added it always "looked seriously at reasonable offers.”

The site is on Armagh Street opposite Victoria Square, and bounded by Gloucester and Colombo Streets and Oxford Terrace.

Chase owns the F-T.C. chain. The reason the company had postponed development of the site was to ensure F.T.C. remained trading in the city during and after the site’s redevelopment According to Mr Adrian Walker, Chase’s investment manager, the company would not sell the site unless a deal over Farmers remaining there could be arranged. “We have had offers, but although we haven’t accepted any, it’s not necessarily because the price was not right’* he said.

“We wish to preserve a Farmers store in Christchurch,” Mr Walker said. No company had an option to buy the prime site, he said. Chase paid $21.2 million for the site earlier this year and proposed to build a cinema complex there. Although that project had not been shelved altogether, “it’s some way down the track.” The company also considered incorporating a parking building on the half-hectare property in conjunction with the Christchurch City Council.