The new multi-million dollar Toolsie Persaud hardware complex will open its doors to the public next Monday marking yet another major investment by one of the country’s best-known and most durable business establishments.
Up to late last week workers were busy putting the finishing touches to the new complex, acquired by the company about a year ago and renovated at a cost of more than $60m. Hardware Manager Mohan Harnanan told Stabroek Business earlier this week that the once drab and depressing Lombard and Sussex streets structure will serve as a modern shopping complex “with hardware as its core business.” No less significant, Harnanan says, is the role that the 11,040 sq ft complex plays in enhancing the appearance of the “run-down” section of south Georgetown that has been the home of the Toolsie Persaud establishment for more than half a century.
The imposing new hardware complex dwarfs the Company’s present modest outlet located on the southern section of the same junction. Harnanan told Stabroek Business that the complex was conceived against the backdrop of the company’s belief that consumer patronage was increasingly being influenced by comfortable and spacious facilities that take account of customer preferences and provide more display space and customer comforts. Tracey Ann Seaforth, the company’s Assistant Manager responsible for customer relations, marketing and advertising told Stabroek Business that the new complex also symbolizes an aggressive push by one of Guyana’s oldest business enterprises to continue to modernize and expand its operations. The new Hardware Division, Seaforth said, will offer the broadest possible range of home and building hardware.
The Toolsie Persaud Group is one of two local shareholders in TCL (Guyana) Ltd. the new cement storage, bagging and distribution facility launched here last December. Other entities in the Toolsie Persaud Group include Interior Forest Industries Ltd, Guyana Thermo Plastics Ltd. and Providence Industries Ltd.
Harnanan told Stabroek Business that the new hardware complex will employ around thirty persons including persons from the south Georgetown area.
Division Manager Mohan Harnanan told Stabroek Business during a recent interview that the new Hardware Complex underscores the company’s abiding faith in the Guyana economy despite the “hard knocks” that it has taken. Five robberies in the past three months appear to have done little to unsettle the company’s expansion plans and according to Harnanan its expansion plans are not yet exhausted.
