Woolworths has told the competition watchdog’s supermarket inquiry that it has not engaged in land banking, despite claims from IGA operator Metcash that the major supermarket had done so.
Woolworths managing director of property Ralph Kemmler told barrister Naomi Sharp, SC, the counsel assisting the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, several times in a public hearing on Monday that the supermarket is not land banking.
Ralph Kemmler, managing director of property at Woolworths, speaks at Monday’s public hearing.
“Mr Kemmler, is it your evidence that Woolworths has never, say, in the last 10 years, acquired an interest in land without an intention to develop that land?” Sharp asked.
“As far as I know, yes,” Kemmler replies.
Referring to internal balance sheets from 2023 under a section called “sites held for strategic reasons”, Sharp pressed Kemmler on whether this counted as land banking, to which Kemmler said “I don’t believe so.”
Sharp asked: “It says that the properties are held on the balance sheet, and they’re not planned for future development, and that they’re held for strategic reasons … Do you want to give us an example of what that means?”
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Kemmler replied: “They’re a combination of company homes, surplus land from developments that we’ve completed that are to be sold or land held pending other developments, and also would include some land that has long term underlying leases that have been developed for other purposes.”
Sharp wasn’t convinced, and asked again what “sites held for strategic reasons” meant. “It means that they didn’t fit into the previous buckets,” Kemmler replied.
“Well, that sounds like a strange explanation of the word ‘strategic’,” Sharp reponded.
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