Three persons from Cornelia Ida, including a minor, are the new owners of the William Fogarty building on Water Street, which carried a whopping $1.4 billion price tag.
Documents, which this newspaper has seen, detail the sale of the building to Munaf Hussein, Saud Hussein and a male minor born in 1997.
The Husseins own Akbar Hussein Auto Sales on North Road and, according to sources, a number of prime real estate spots in the city.
The new owners of the Wm Fogarty building at 34-37 Water Street, have leased the middle floor back to the old owners and are now seeking to rent the first and third floors as well.
It is not clear what plans the Husseins have for the building, as efforts to contact them proved futile and the old owners have no interest as they no longer own the building.
“We don’t know what plans the new owners have, you have to ask them, the building is no longer owned by us. It was gazetted and sold so why should we care what happens? We have leased a part, what they do with the rest is not up to us,” CEO of Wm Fogarty Hussein Haniff told Stabroek News via telephone from Miami last week.
A seemingly agitated Haniff pointed out that last year December, at a press conference, Chairman of the Laparkan Group of Companies, Glen Khan had explained that his company was selling the building and would be leasing a section. As such, he said that all questions on future developments should be taken to the new owners. William Fogarty Limited is among the holdings of the Laparkan Group.
When Stabroek News visited the store last week, the gift shop and the jewellery store had already been moved to the second floor, which houses a clothing store. While the cafeteria and supermarket were still functioning the latter was desolate with only one person browsing the scantily packed isles.
The third floor which houses Laparkan Financial Service, a general office and a furniture and electronic department had only the security person on the sales floor. However, inside the office many employees were busy at work.
An employee informed that the office will also be moved to the second floor and explained that “the profitable businesses” will be consolidated on the second floor.
On November 27, 2013 Stabroek News had reported that Fogarty’s on Water Street and its Norton Street bond were sold, which saw Khan calling a press conference to clear the air on the sale.
Then he had said that the building had been sold as part of a financial strategy and the company would not be affected. He had stated that the building was “sold and then leased” as part of a visionary financial undertaking of his company.
“What we did was sell the Fogarty’s building and lease it back… this is what they call financial engineering—how you release capital to one of your major assets so that you can put it back into the business… It’s [Fogarty’s] staying in the same building, it’s expanding in the same building but it doesn’t own the buildings,” Khan had told the press conference.
Khan did assert that the building will still be named the William Fogarty building after its original owner. He added that Fogarty’s is an “iconic building” which would be retained by a “Guyanese group.”
He also said that Fogarty’s businesses deemed most profitable, such as its financial services, garment sales and cafeteria will remain in the building. “What we will have here is what we need…. In a lot of cases, the challenge has always been to modernize and stock Fogarty’s to its core level. That needs to be done and that is why we came up with a solution that would change the arrangement as we go forward,” he had said.
None of the company’s 135 employees will be out of a job as the Chairman then assured that what the public would see is more persons being employed as the strategic modernization and expansion moves were made. “Generally, we don’t see any changes in our staff levels and we have had that discussion with the union because Fogarty’s is unionized and we have had extensive discussions with the union,” he had noted.
