Joint venture company takes over Government Printery

Serendip, a joint venture company set up between Fijian Holdings Limited and Sri Lankan company Aitken Spence has bought Government Printery and takes over its operations and assets from today.

FHL owns 75% of Serendip and Aitken Spence owns 25% of the company.

Fijian Holdings Limited handed over a payment of $6 million today for all the assets of Government Printery to the Minister for Economy and Public Enterprise Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

Sayed-Khaiyum says all personnel that have been working at Government Printery have gotten job offers from Serendip but some have chosen to go to other places.

A service agreement has been setup between Serendip and the Fijian government which will allow Serendip to continue to do printing works for the government, for example the printing of bills for parliament as well as gazette notices.

Sayed-Khaiyum says government will pay Serendip for their services but it does not mean that Serendip cannot go out and look for business.

A condition of the sale was for Serendip to invest $1.5 million in new technology within the first two years.

A 99-year lease for the property has also been given to Serendip.