Trusts last main liquor independent?

Press, 27 June 1989, Page 12

Trusts last main liquor independent?

PA Wellington Licensing trusts could be the last of the main, independent liquor retailers in New Zealand, said the president of the New Zealand Licensing Trusts Association, Mr Jim Gray, at their annual general meeting in Oamaru.

Mr Gray said delegates may be witnessing fundamental changes to the liquor industry which would continue well into next year. Operators in the field could be jostling for position after the announcement that Magnum Corporation is to acquire the New Zealand liquor interests of Wilson Neill, subject to statutory ap-

provals. The Sale of Liquor Bill, likely to pass through the remainder of its stages in Parliament next month and become law next April, would cause much change in the industry. “Reports of the Magnum move acknowledged that a motivating factor is indeed the Sale of Liquor Bill which, when it becomes law, will allow many new liquor outlets to be established throughout the country, except in trust areas where polls to determine whether voters prefer competition will have to be held first,” he said.

The removal of the Wilson Neill organisation

from true independent status would place greater responsibility on the trusts to give customers the choice of as wide a range of products as possible and not just those of the two big companies, Lion Nathan and Magnum, he said.

“The really small operators who emerge are going to find it more difficult to survive the sophisticated marketing and promotional approaches taken by the main players. “It looks like only the trusts will be able to do that.”

Mr Gray said new outlets could be set up in future just over trust

boundaries, because Parliament had voted against a needs criteria being reinstated in the new liquor legislation.

“This means we must continue to actively consider pooling some of our strengths on a regional basis and working with each other on common problems and opportunities, including sharing some of the costs involved.”

A consultants’ report recommending regionalisation was put to last year’s conference, and a new company, Trust House, Ltd, had since been set up in the central region covering the lower North Island.