Business sale part of 'exciting' Trust House plan

GOING CONCERN: The Solway Four Square business is on the market.

Trust House is to sell its Solway Four Square business as part of a major shake-up which its chief executive Alan Pollard says is part of "exciting new developments".

This follows the recent announcement that the Trust House-owned Greytown community store is up for sale.

In both cases Trust House is selling the businesses while retaining ownership of the land and buildings to generate income by leasing them to new owners.

"The sale of these businesses is part of some exciting new developments which will grow Trust House equity, improve profitability and provide greater returns to the community," said Mr Pollard.

More changes to Trust House businesses would be announced within the new few weeks, he said.

The Four Square store would be sold as a going concern and it would be up to the new owner as to whether the three full-time and five part-time staff would be retained.

He said the business, which was established by Trust House in October last year in a renovated building which was formerly a bottle store at the Homestead, had performed "below expectations". He expected this would be reversed under an owner-operator model.

In another recent change, Trust House has adopted the Bottle-O brand for its bottle stores.