Unicomer Group executive vice president Guillermo Siman says the group was approached by Ansa McAl to purchase Standard Distributors the major competitor of Unicomer’s Courts Furniture stores, but declined to do so because of overlapping store and branch locations. He was speaking on November 19 during the relaunch of the new Courts Megastore off the Churchill Roosevelt Highway in El Socorro. Standard Distributors was sold recently to fintech company Term Finance, bringing an end to Standard’s 80 years of operations in TT. Siman said, “I think it’s sad in the sense that it’s a company that had been in Trinidad for a very long time. Believe it or not, we believe competition to be very healthy,” he said. The group’s vice president and managing director of its Caribbean operations, Felix Siman, joined in, saying, “It’s never good to see other retailers close stores. We would like to encourage and assure that the Trinidad market continues to grow for everyone. Obviously, we’ve been concerned on some of the current conditions in Trinidad.” Regarding the forex shortage crisis, Felix said while this remains a major challenge for companies, Unicomer has used its position as a large regional importer to navigate this issue. He said so in response to questions on Unicomer’s strategies to source scarce forex in order to regularly stock its 18 local Courts stores. “We’re fortunate that we’re a large conglomerate. So we leverage our capacity as a multinational corporation to really try to still bring in the best products from overseas. We’ve also taken the opportunity to partner with local vendors and really expand the local offering,” Felix said. “I think that’s an opportunity as well for Trinidadians to shop for local products. But we understand there are products that Trinidadians need and we need to import. So we really leverage our ability and capacity to do so.” Guillermo said TT was not the only market where Unicomer’s businesses faced forex hurdles, noting that its operations in Guyana and several Central American territories also have similar difficulties. He said he is confident this government will take the necessary steps to help meet local commercial forex needs. “We truly believe in the future of the Trinidad market. We believe we’ve been here in the past, we’ve been here today and we’ll be here in the future. So we really invest not for today, we invest for the future.” The new Megastore, located on the same compound as the previous store, offers 4, 600 square feet of retail space, 30 per cent more than the old store. It will also feature a Starbucks outlet. This is Unicomer’s largest retail store across the 20 markets it operates. It is designed as a one-stop shop where customers can access all of Courts services. The expansion created more than 60 direct and indirect jobs, adding to the more than 1, 000 jobs Courts has created over the past 20 years. The project cost nearly $180 million and took 28 months to complete. The new store will open to customers next week. This is not Unicomer’s final investment at the site. The company plans to demolish the old Megastore building and replace it with a new plaza featuring retail space and restaurants. Felix said the continued investment reflects Unicomer’s strong confidence in Trinidad and Tobago. “We take pride that we’re the leading retailer in Trinidad and we want to make sure that we continue to provide that growth for us as an organisation and for our consumers. Customers have trusted Courts here in Trinidad for almost 40 years. And what we want to make sure is that we continue that in offering world-class and best products, best services, and this store really represents that,” he said. The post Courts approached to purchase Standard Distributors appeared first.
