Former Price Club outlet to open soon

The notice on the door of the former Price club supermarket in Naxxar says it all. The supermarket will soon open its doors again for customers after the premises was leased to the Said family, owners of Peter Blond International.

Prior to closing down, the supermarket had a large catchment area that covered Mosta and Naxxar making it an attractive venture for the new owner.

Meanwhile Price Club creditors on Thursday nominated Dr Andrew Borg Cardona as liquidator for the Price Club chain.

The supermarket chain went out of business last year after it was unable to pay heavy debts. The creditors also appointed a new creditors' committee made up of Victor Brockdorff, representing Alf. Mizzi and Sons Ltd, Geoffrey Borg of Simonds Farsons Cisk plc., Hugh Mercieca of General Soft Drinks Ltd, Reginald Fava of Chemimart Ltd and Tony Zammit Cutajar of P. Cutajar and Co.

Discussions are still underway in a bid to solve the financial problems that hound the supermarket chain. Meetings with Maltese and foreign businessmen have never stopped in a bid to sell the chain.

Until today no concrete bidder has come forward to save the business despite numerous contacts with people involved in the supermarket field.

In February of last year, the Price Club Supermarkets were in the process of expanding the chain by opening two new outlets, one at Naxxar and another at Attard.

The Price Club saga protracted for almost a year with unofficial reports that the chain was in financial difficulty. When the bubble burst in the summer of last year intense negotiations were going on to try and find new investors to keep the chain afloat. At one point it was mentioned that the Maltese-Libyan company Lafico was interested in investing in the Price Club chain. The talks led nowhere. The same happened when the name of a potential Italian investor was mentioned.

In September last year the patience of the Price Club creditors ran out. They gave the supermarket owners an October deadline for concrete proposals to be put forward. Nothing materialised and eight months later the creditors took the final decision to put the chain in liquidation to try and recuperate the thousands they are owed.