National Properties

National Properties (NP) has recently been in the news. Attention has focussed on its agricultural operations. The organisation has two farms, one at Peter’s Hope and the other at Rabacca. They were set up by Victor Hadley, then NP chairman, and more recently, have been vigorously promoted by Dr Jerrol Thompson. It was decided, while waiting for Peter’s Hope to take off as tourist resort, to set up a farm to produce vegetables and chicken and so cut our import food bill.{{more}}

This farm is still evolving, identifying profitable crops, appropriate greenhouses and an effective distribution system. The farm at Rabacca has different objectives. One is to develop tree crops which, of course, take time to mature and yield returns. The other objective is to provide raw material for Lauders Agroprocessors, which was itself launched by NP. In all the literature, it is recommended that a facility such as Lauders should not rely solely on buying in produce, but should have a farm attached to it. Rabacca is that farm and like Peter’s Hope it is a work in progress.

Farming, however, is only a very small part of NP’s operations. The present Government set up the organisation to focus primarily on using real estate to further the development of SVG. At the moment, the project most critical to our development is the Argyle airport. So far, through various transactions, NP has raised some 70 million dollars to help fund this scheme. Looking beyond the airport, NP has been the agency that the Government has used to see to the preparation of the plan to build the new Kingstown which was recently featured in this paper.

The enterprise is also responsible for residential Ottley Hall, much of the Reclamation Site, Cobblestone Inn and the industrial estates at Campden Park and Diamond. It has, too, been sorting out the Sunsail and Trinity Medical School sites, as well as several small properties in Kingstown for which Government has been receiving a peppercorn rent.

The organization follows fairly conservative policies. It has share capital (equity) of about 170 million dollars and outstanding debt of about 50 million. It has already repaid about 50 million in debt and not too long ago pulled out of directly operating a supermarket. NP can be said to have a strong balance sheet, which is not to say it will not on occasion struggle to find cash to meet its operational expenses.

NP has a small staff, but is involved in million dollar transactions. Its chairman and senior staff need to be carefully selected and adequately rewarded.