PTC acquires Spar franchise, seeks govt support
People’s Trading Centre (PTC), a subsidiary of dual-listed conglomerate Press Corporation Limited (PCL), on Friday opened a Spar-branded shop in Lilongwe, following PCL’s acquisition of the South African retail chain franchise.
PCL group chief executive officer Matthews Chikaonda assured that the Spar franchise will succeed this time around after poor business performance that necessitated its earlier closure in the country.
He said: “The city centre shop alone has a staff compliment of 86 employees and this is bigger than what most of the companies employ in this country.”
Chikaonda asked government to support the company with the issuance of temporary employment permits for its foreign staff.
Vice-President Saulos Chilima, who was the guest of honour during the event, asked PCL, through PTC, to maintain the standards to accord Malawians a world class shopping experience associated with Spar elsewhere in the world.
“PTC is also a big and important buyer of local products and supports many local manufacturing companies. PTC further assists government’s efforts in job creation,” he said.
