Foodstuffs leader to head up Tramco

Angela Bull sees her role with Tramco as an exciting opportunity. Photo / Dean Purcell

$300 million of work under way as companies build new stores and modernise others, adding new jobs.

A prominent commercial property development specialist has been appointed to head one of Auckland's wealthiest land owners.

Angela Bull, general manager of property development for Foodstuffs which owns Pak'nSave, New World, Four Square, Liquorland and many other businesses, has been appointed chief executive of Tramco, connected to Viaduct Harbour Holdings which owns much of the land around the waterfront Viaduct Basin and big slices of Newmarket and surrounds.

Chris Quin, who has succeeded Murray Jordan as the Foodstuffs chief executive, said Bull had a "stellar career" with Foodstuffs. After a career in law, she joined it as a property development executive in 2006 and moved to general manager property development in 2008.

She had been "central in helping Foodies win some great battles, like getting Pak'nSave Wairau opened - and she's led a high-performing team who've secured the best sites and built and refurbished stores that are right up there with world-class supermarketing", Quin said.

"Just recently Angela took the lead for Foodstuffs with the infant formula threat, a huge effort that ultimately kept our customers and the reputation of our brands safe."

He said Bull was likely to finish with Foodstuffs in late January.

Bull said she was pleased about the appointment. "It's all happened very quickly but a great opportunity. I'm sad to leave Foodstuffs after almost 10 years but this will be an exciting new role."

Foodstuffs human resources manager Mark Daldorf is also leaving.

Daldorf led the merger of Foodstuffs Auckland and Foodstuffs Wellington and was responsible for all aspects of staffing.

Viaduct Harbour owns about 20ha of waterfront Viaduct and Wynyard Quarter land leased to hundreds of apartment owners and other lessees in commercial, hotel, retail and other buildings, including The Point apartments and Fonterra's new Fanshawe St world headquarters.

That area of Auckland is regarded as having the city's biggest potential, pushing the heart out towards the waterfront and the west.

Land values are rising fast there and many lessees to Viaduct and its associated businesses are on five-yearly ground rent reviews.

Bull initially joined Foodstuffs as a property development executive, responsible for buying sites. One of the first was Wairau Park where the business had for about 21 years tried to develop a Pak'nSave on a site not zoned for that activity - a dispute which was one of New Zealand's most bitter planning battles.

The 4899sq m, $40 million building at the centre of that battle was eventually built on Wairau Rd land bought by Foodstuffs in the 1980s, then developed. After objections by rival supermarket chain Progressive Enterprises, the Pak'nSave was built in 2005, but by 2008 it was still empty, locked up in legal wrangles.

Foodstuffs was barred from opening due to the planning dispute with Progressive, which took Pak'nSave owner the National Trading Co - a Foodstuffs (Auckland) subsidiary - to court, with the North Shore City Council, to block the project on planning grounds. Progressive won, so the store stayed shut for years.

Bull said she took a whole new approach when she stepped into that battle. "When I came to Foodstuffs, it was an empty building, all wrapped up in the courts and very ugly and we went for a new resource consent, publicly notified. We knew it had community support because people would phone in and ask about it.

"It opened two years later. That was one of the biggest highlights of my career because it was looking at the problem as a puzzle and solving it," she said last month.

In 2008, Bull was appointed to her current position at Foodstuffs.